


love is for mortals and fools

by astralpenguin



Series: nearly truth (pretty lies) [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Maze (Maze Runner), Angst, Aroace Frypan, Aromantic Frypan, Asexual Frypan, Character Death, Death Note AU, Death Note References, Detective Newt, Established Background Ben/Gally/Minho, Established Harriet/Sonya, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, Grey and Black Morality, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Occasional Chatfic, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Temporary Amnesia, Villain Protagonist, Youtuber Brenda, but if you don't at least know the basic premise of that series i'd be very impressed, established background relationships - Freeform, if you're reading maze runner fic then you already know the drill, it doesn't happen to any of the characters i promise, it takes a long time for the main pairings to meet, it's referenced that it's a thing that happens in the world, no knowledge of death note needed, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23927773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralpenguin/pseuds/astralpenguin
Summary: When a special notebook is dropped at her feet, Teresa sees the way that she can save the worldWhen the man who killed her parents dies, Brenda decides that she likes how the world is changingWhen criminals start dropping dead, Newt sees it as his most difficult case yetWhen the times they're living in prove to be very interesting, Thomas gets caught between his sister and the detective who's sure she's guilty
Relationships: Newt & Sonya | Elizabeth "Lizzy" (Maze Runner), Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner), Teresa Agnes/Brenda (Maze Runner)
Series: nearly truth (pretty lies) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724854
Comments: 110
Kudos: 61
Collections: Pieces of Brenderesa





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for the record, i got back into death note a month or so _before_ the new oneshot came out
> 
> the obvious choices for a death note au would be to cast newt as L, thomas as light, and teresa as misa. this would be more in keeping with how the relationships play out. but there's a major problem with this setup, and that's that thomas wouldn't do the kinds of things that light did. it would be way too out of character, even for an au. there's no way that he'd ever do anything like that.
> 
> but teresa? teresa might
> 
> and once i had that realisation i knew that i had to write it
> 
> my aim is for this fic to be enjoyable regardless of whether or not you like teresa (or brenda). feel free to cheer for or against them, it's up to you!
> 
> i want to draw your attention to the fact that i've chosen not to use archive warnings for this fic. this has been the case for all of my long fics so far, and it's been for different reasons every time. the fact that i'm drawing your attention to it this time around is a warning in and of itself. please read and understand the tags
> 
> finally, housekeeping! this fic is set in the UK because i don't want to spend ages researching when i'm already going to be spending ages writing. also in this fic, thomas and teresa are cousins, but thomas' mother adopted teresa when she was very young after her parents died

_"If you have some kind of special power... isn't it your responsibility to do the right thing?" - Undertale, 2015_

* * *

Sonya was the last of her friends to move into their house for their second year at university.

The official move-in date for her and the people she’d be living with had been the beginning of September. All three of her housemates, Frypan, Teresa, and Sonya’s girlfriend Harriet, had moved in on that day as scheduled.

(The rest of her friendship group, Thomas, Minho, Gally, and Ben, had all moved into _their_ house around then, too.)

But Sonya hadn’t seen her brother in over a year, and she’d missed him! Whenever Sonya had visited home, her brother hadn’t been there. His work took him all over the world. His visits home were getting rarer and rarer, and through the entirety of her first year of university, they’d never been home at the same time.

They called and messaged each other regularly, but it just wasn’t the same.

So when he’d shown up at home at the start of September, any plan she’d had to move in at the same time as everybody else had gone sailing out of the window.

It meant that she’d get the last pick of the bedrooms. Oh well. Big deal. She got to spend three weeks hanging out with her brother. She’d happily live in a cupboard under some stairs for the next two years as a result.

Okay.

Maybe that was an exaggeration.

Unfortunately, the new semester was quickly approaching. Brother or no brother, Sonya needed to go back to uni.

He couldn’t come with her.

Firstly, in his line of work, letting people know that he even _had_ a sister was a risk that he couldn’t take.

Secondly, shortly after her classes started for the year, he needed to travel out of the country again anyway.

She put off going back to university until the day before her classes started.

Which was how she found herself standing outside the door of the house she would hopefully be living in for the next two years, a few boxes and bags full of her stuff on the ground next to her, at midday on a Sunday near the end of September.

Without a key to get inside.

She’d insisted that Roger didn’t need to wait to see her in, and had refused to go up to the door until he’d driven away. She now realised that this may have been a mistake.

Despite what people had insisted when she was a kid, and despite what some people insisted on claiming even now, she never claimed to be a genius.

Hopefully somebody would be awake.

If they weren’t, then at least it wasn’t too cold.

She rang the doorbell.

After five minutes of silence, she rang it again.

Two minutes after that, the door opened.

Teresa was dressed in a fluffy red dressing gown, and looked as if she’d been fast asleep just moments ago.

Oops.

Some of her sleepiness disappeared, however, when she realised who’d woken her up.

“Sonya!” she said, and wrapped Sonya in a tight hug.

“Miss me?”

“Of course!” Teresa let Sonya go and reached for her shoes. “Let’s get your stuff inside.”

Sonya picked up a bag and hefted it over her shoulder. “Where are the others?”

Teresa shrugged. “Still asleep, probably. It was the returner’s club night yesterday, so they might be hungover.”

Sonya raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem to be.”

Teresa laughed. “I didn’t drink. I just started feeling better, the last thing I want is to make myself sick again.”

Sonya nodded with mock solemnity, “Very wise,” she said. “Join me in my sobriety.”

Teresa grinned. “Maybe,” she said. “It _is_ funny watching them all make fools of themselves, but you also end up feeling responsible for them and what they do, and I don’t know if I’m up for that.”

“Now you know my pain,” said Sonya, matching Teresa’s grin.

The room that would be Sonya’s was upstairs and to the left. It took the two of them just two trips to take all her things up there, leaving her kitchen equipment in a box in the kitchen for her to sort out later.

“Is that it?” Teresa asked. “It took way longer than that to move all my stuff in.”

“Yeah,” said Sonya. “That’s it. Orphanage, remember?”

“Oh,” said Teresa. “Oh yeah. Sorry.”

Sonya put an arm around her friend and squeezed, hoping to reassure her. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

Teresa shook her head. “No, I need to think before I speak, I’d get so pissed off if someone just forgot about _my_ mother like that.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not you, then.” Sonya looked her in the eye. “Seriously, I promise it’s fine.”

Teresa bit her lip, but nodded and relaxed.

“Hey!” came a voice from somewhere else in the house. “Why is there a box in the middle of my kitchen?!”

Teresa ran out of Sonya’s reach and room. “Sonya’s here!” she called out as she went.

Sonya followed Teresa out.

Frypan was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Sonya waved at him.

“Hey Sonya!” he said. “Do you want breakfast?”

This late in the day it was more accurate to call it brunch, if not straight up lunch, but Sonya wasn’t about to correct him. “Sure!”

“Cool,” said Frypan. “Now come put your crap away so I can actually cook it.”

Sonya did as she was told.

Teresa disappeared, saying that she needed to shower and get out of her pyjamas.

When Sonya had finished putting her kitchen things away, she took the now empty box up to her room, put it under the bed, and set about unpacking everything else.

She was halfway through filling the chest of drawers with her clothes when she heard a voice at her door.

She dropped the t-shirt in her hands onto her bed and spun to see Harriet standing there. She was wearing a set of blue pyjamas, looking very much like Teresa had earlier in that she’d probably only just got out of bed, though she did seem to be marginally more awake than Teresa had been.

“Do you have to be so noisy?” asked Harriet, a smile slowly forming on her face. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Sonya launched herself at her.

They both laughed into the kiss.

“Hey Sunshine,” said Harriet when they parted enough to talk. “How was home?”

“It was good,” said Sonya.

“You didn’t have to clean up after too many kids?”

“Oh, no, I had to clean up after _so many_ kids,” Sonya laughed. “But they liked the workshops and activities I ran! And I’m allowed to come and go as I please now, so I spent a lot of time in town anyway. It was basically the best summer ever.”

“That’s great!”

They pushed Sonya’s bags out of the way and sat on the end of her bed.

“How was your brother?” asked Harriet.

“Good,” said Sonya. “Really good. He was taking a break from work, so it was great to just hang with him for a few weeks. He ran some workshops for the kids as well, and they all loved him!” She sighed. “It’s been way too long, I’ve missed him. And I’m really sorry that I didn’t let you guys know that I’d be moving in late until the day we were supposed to be moving in. I didn’t know he was coming home until that morning. I told you guys as soon as I could.”

“It’s fine,” said Harriet. “He’s your brother, he’s important to you. Of course you’d want to spend as much time with him as possible.” She held Sonya’s hand. “What was his name again? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it.”

And wasn’t that just the thing.

There wasn’t a solid reason why her brother hid his name.

When he’d first started out in his line of work, he’d still been a child. People had a tendency not to take the word of a child seriously, even if that child proved time and time again that he was smarter than everyone else by a long way, and was single handedly solving cases that had stumped some of the greatest known minds. People just didn’t want to listen.

So he’d retreated behind a computer screen. He’d hidden his face, masked his voice, and adopted the nickname that she’d always used for him as his professional alias.

Not that it was much of one.

Following this, it had become a Thing. Every kid at the orphanage used a different name than their real one. When they grew up they’d be free to do whatever they wanted, and use whichever name they chose. But having that spare name, and being used to it, opened the doors into her brother’s world.

Sonya was enrolled at university under a name that wasn’t her own.

She’d used Sonya for years. At the same time that her brother had picked his new name, he’d asked her to pick a new name for herself. For safety reasons, he’d said. She agreed that it was a sensible thing to do.

Sonya felt like her name just as much as her real name did.

The surname came later, when she’d needed something to put on her university application. She hadn’t been able to decide, and eventually resorted to asking her brother to choose for her.

He’d picked _Mendes._

She supposed she couldn’t complain. She’d asked him to pick a name for her, and he’d picked one. That was that.

But she didn’t feel comfortable sharing her brother’s real name with anyone. Not even Harriet.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Harriet. She trusted Harriet so much, and she knew that she could safely tell Harriet everything. She fully intended to, one day.

But her brother’s name had been a closely guarded secret for so long, and Sonya wasn’t about to reveal it without his say so.

And he didn’t go by anything else for long enough periods of time for any of those names to feel like anything but lies.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “His name is a secret.”

Harriet looked surprised. “A secret? What?”

Sonya smiled. “I’m not allowed to tell people my brother’s name. It's a secret.”

Harriet shook her head, still smiling. “Either you’re fucking with me and you’re hiding his name for no reason, or he’s famous or something.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God is your brother Shawn Mendes?”

Sonya fell backwards onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, ignoring Harriet’s laughter. “How the fuck would my brother be Shawn Mendes? He’s Canadian! I’m very much not!”

“You never know,” said Harriet. “If someone told me that somebody I knew had been faking their accent for the last year, you’d be my first choice for who it was.”

Sonya glared up at her. “Are we really bringing that up again?”

Harriet held her hands up in surrender. She was still shaking with laughter. “Even you’ve got to admit that your accent sounds fake sometimes.”

“That’s what happens when you’re taught every language under the sun as a kid,” said Sonya, pushing herself back upright.

“Every time you mention anything about how you grew up, I get more and more confused about that place.”

“Honestly, you don’t know the half of it,” said Sonya. She squeezed Harriet’s hand and stood. “But even if the schooling there is intense, it’s not more than we can handle. And it’s way better than the alternative for most of the kids there.”

“Yeah,” said Harriet, who stood up as well. “It’s basically like the Xavier Institute, right?”

Sonya laughed. “Yes, except it’s not superpowers, it’s skills and talents.”

“How come they let you in then?”

“Hey!”

Harriet laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist that one. You left it wide open!”

Sonya rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said. “Fry said he was making food, he’s got to be nearly done by now.”

  
  


**DON’T DATE YOUR FLATMATES JFC YOU GUYS**

**Teresa:** sonya’s here !!!

**Minho:** i need every single one of you to make sure that i never touch a drop of alcohol again in my entire lifge

**Minho:** i spent fuckign £80 on amazon last night

**Minho:** also hey sonya !!

**Thomas:** cancel the order??

**Minho:** can’t. prime. they’ve already dispatched

**Thomas:** wow

**Gally:** What I want to know is what did you buy?

**Ben:** ^^

**Minho:** i don’t want to talk about it

**Ben:** You’re the one who brought it up

**Ben:** Don’t chicken out now

**Gally:** And seeing as whatever you ordered will be getting sent to the house that we all live in, I think we have a right to know

**Minho:** my bfs are ganging up on me :(

**Thomas:** for those following along at home, gally just barged into minho’s room and ran off with his computer. minho is chasing him. ben is sitting in the dining room, sipping his coffee, watching the chaos

**Ben:** Who needs tv when you’ve got these two?

**Frypan:** Omg

**Sonya:** I’ve missed you guys lmaooo

**Teresa:** sounds like your house is chaos

**Teresa:** i’m so glad i chose to live with the sane ones

**Thomas:** oi

**Teresa:** tom you are my brother and i love you very very much but you are a disaster and i need a break sometimes and you’re much better suited to the chaos anyway

**Thomas:** okay fair

**Gally:** IT WAS GLITTER

**Gally:** HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SPEND THAT MUCH MONEY ON FUCKING GLITTER???

**Minho:** A: not all of my amazon purchases last night were glitter, i got some books too and that shit adds up

**Minho:** B: it’s edible glitter. i’m gonna have so many fancy looking cocktails

**Teresa:** didn’t you Just Say you weren’t gonna drink anymore?

**Minho:** shhhhh

**Frypan:** Yeet the glitter my way? I’m gonna do some baking and the glitter could look really cool as decoration

**Gally:** What kind of baking?

**Frypan:** If you’re looking for someone to make you weed brownies then you’re looking in the wrong place my friend

**Gally:** It Was One Time Please Let Me Rest

**Harriet:** Wait Gally ate a weed brownie? When did this happen?

**Sonya:** Babe he didn’t eat just one

**Sonya:** Remember when he went to Winston’s for pres and ended up coming back home instead of going out because he was so sick?

**Sonya:** He’d eaten a whole tray of them

**Gally:** I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE

**Harriet:** Yikes

**Minho:** yes fry you may have the glitter. i’m keeping some of it, but you’ll still have more glitter than you’ll know what to do with

**Frypan:** Thankees

**Thomas:** we should meet up!

**Teresa:** yessss we should!

**Teresa:** we only have today before classes start

**Harriet:** Please do not remind me

**Harriet:** My timetable is disgusting

**Gally:** How so?

**Harriet:** The only day I don’t have a 9am is Friday

**Gally:** What the fuck

**Sonya:** Proof that the psychology dept is homophobic ;_;

**Minho:** bar?? tonight??? 7ish???

**Thomas:** i do not wish to drink, i can’t do it two nights in a row

**Minho:** you’re getting old lmao

**Minho:** seriously though, you don’t have to. i probably won’t tbh

**Minho:** i suggest it because campus is the midpoint for us so it’s fair. everyone has a 15 minute walk home instead of some having a 30 minute walk while others have no walk at all

**Sonya:** Harriet Teresa and I are up for it!

**Sonya:** @Frypan @Ben @Gally ???

**Ben:** Sounds good to me

**Ben:** Gally says yes too

**Frypan:** Won’t it be full of freshers? They all move in today and the first freshers event is tonight

**Minho:** if we can get a table to ourselves then that won’t be an issue

**Frypan:** True

**Frypan:** Okay sure

**Minho:** sweet! see you guys there!

  
  


They were, by some miracle, able to get a table to themselves in the bar.

Thomas didn’t think that he’d ever seen so many people here at once. Last year, when he and his friends had all been freshers themselves, they’d had the sense to avoid the bar. They’d gone to the club night event that night, sure, but they’d known that the bar was likely to be packed, so they’d stayed away. That first evening had been spent getting to know each other in the privacy of their own kitchen. It was a night he looked back on fondly.

But they didn’t all live in the same place anymore. In order to spend the evening with everybody in one of their houses, whoever’s house it wasn’t was going to have a half an hour long walk there and back. This didn’t mean that they’d never spend any time at each other’s houses. They were hopefully going to be living in them for the next two years! But the campus bar was an equal distance away for everyone, and so it was perfect for the first whole group meetup of the academic year.

It was a shame about the freshers, but such was life.

They had their own table, so there was no point in complaining.

“So Sonya,” said Minho once everyone had returned with their drinks. “Tell us about your summer.”

Sonya took a sip of her cola, then looked up. “Why are you all staring at me?”

“Because we’re waiting for you to talk,” said Minho.

Sonya shrugged. “It wasn’t all that exciting. I ran some classes for the younger kids, and I went to the library a lot. What about you guys?”

“We’ve already had a month to talk about our summers,” said Minho. “We’ve moved on, it’s over, I’m sorry but you’re too late.”

“Teresa,” said Sonya, “kick him for me would you?”

Thomas felt a sharp pain on his shin.

“Ow!” he said, rubbing at it. “Learn to aim, would you?”

“Sorry!”

“Our Mum got promoted last month,” said Thomas. “That’s something that happened over summer that we can talk about. She runs her own team now.”

Teresa rolled her eyes. “I don’t think anyone really cares about that.”

Sonya shook her head firmly. “Of course I care! That’s great news!”

“Your brother’s a detective too, right?” Thomas asked.

Thomas didn’t think that anyone else noticed it, but Sonya sat up a little straighter when he asked that.

Sonya had always been cagey about her brother. They hadn’t even known that she _had_ a brother until midway through the Christmas break in first year. And it wasn’t like there hadn’t been any opportunities to bring him up. Thomas and Teresa had gushed about Chuck enough, and Gally had talked about his sister enough that the group at least knew her name (it was Beth). But Sonya had always kept facts about her brother close to her chest.

A small part of Thomas thought that Sonya’s brother might not exist.

“Kinda,” she said. “I’m not really an expert on what he does.”

“Well, if he is, then maybe there’s a chance that he and Mum could end up working together one day?”

Sonya shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell me if he did.”

“Hey,” said Gally, cutting through the conversation and drawing all attention to him. “Guess who I saw in the Hive yesterday?”

He paused while the group replied with variations of _‘who?’._

“Brenda Despain.”

“The Youtuber?” asked Frypan.

“No, the other Brenda Despain.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes it was the Youtuber, how many other Brenda Despains are there?”

“Does that mean she’s coming back to uni?” asked Ben. “Like for good?”

Gally shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t stop to ask, I just saw her.”

“She never stopped coming to class,” said Teresa. “She was allowed to not do any of the exams, but except for the times that the police were asking her questions, I don’t think she skipped a single class.”

“I wish I could get away with not having to do any exams or coursework,” said Minho.

Thomas saw Teresa glare at him.

“Not that I want my parents to get murdered. Obviously I don’t want that. I want the not having to do exams and coursework part without the dead parents part. I love my parents. I want them to stay alive.”

“Knock on wood,” said Harriet.

Minho did so.

“Hey Teresa,” said Thomas. “How is it that you _know_ that Brenda didn’t skip any classes?”

Teresa turned her glare on him.

Thomas held up his hands in surrender.

“Ooooh,” said Minho. “Does our Teresa have a crush?”

“Yeah, on a Youtuber who probably doesn’t even know that I exist, leave me alone.” She picked up her drink and drank some.

“You’re friends on Facebook,” said Harriet. “She must’ve acknowledged your existence at least once.”

“We’re on the same course,” said Teresa. “Everybody in the course groupchat are Facebook friends with each other. That doesn’t mean we’ve ever spoken to each other.” she sighed. “She’s way too cool for me.”

“If you’re coursemates, then that’s a way you could start talking to her,” said Ben. “You could message her asking if she understood something? Or to complain about one of your lecturers?”

“And what if she thinks that I’m just trying to get close to her because she’s an influencer? Or because I feel sorry for her?”

Ben shrugged. “Then that’s her loss. You’re pretty great.”

Teresa smiled. “Thanks, Ben.”

The conversation moved on, as large group conversations tend to do.

“So,” Frypan said to Thomas as everyone else became engrossed in their own, smaller conversations. “What’s it like living with the throuple?”

Thomas laughed. “I’m living with three of my friends,” he said. “It just so happens that those three friends are dating each other.”

“Isn’t it weird, though?”

Thomas shrugged. “Not really. When I’m hanging out with them, it really does feel like we’re just a group of friends. They keep themselves under control if I’m in the room.”

“And if you’re in the next room over?”

“Fry,” said Thomas, “are you asking if I’ve ever heard them having sex?”

“Oh please,” said Frypan. “You were there last year. We’ve _all_ heard them having sex. It’s just that now you don’t have anyone else to share in your misery with.”

“But I _do_ have headphones, and I have the ability to mind my own business.” Thomas grinned. “Besides, I’ll get them back for it someday.”

“Confident are you?”

“Hey, I’m a catch and you know it!”

“Technically, I don’t, but confidence is good.”

Thomas laughed, and noticed that Teresa wasn’t talking to anyone.

She was watching one of the bar’s TV screens.

Thomas turned around to look at it.

The screen was showing footage of a burning building.

“It’s a school,” said Teresa.

“A school?”

“Yeah,” said Teresa. Thomas couldn’t identify the emotion in her voice, but it wasn’t good. “Somebody thought it would be funny to set it on fire.”

The screen changed. The bar across the bottom of the screen that described what was being reported on said that the current report was now about a fifteen year old, who’d been stabbed to death in London.

The next report was about an elderly care home that was closing amid an investigation into the abuse of its residents.

“Maybe we shouldn’t keep watching this,” said Frypan. “It’s just depressing.”

“Why are people like this?” asked Teresa. “What do they get out of it?”

“Some people are awful,” said Thomas. “Most people aren’t. The people who aren’t don’t tend to make the news. Bad news always gets more attention. None of us looked at the TV at all while it was showing the football highlights, because it wasn’t bad news”

“Yeah, I know.”

Thomas turned back to face Teresa. While her voice had been largely unreadable, her face was anything but.

He never liked seeing her upset. Out of the two of them, Teresa was usually the tough and strong one. She was usually the one with all the answers. She usually knew what to do about whatever was wrong.

She wasn’t openly upset like this very often, and Thomas had no idea what to do. This wasn’t something that he could fix.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s got into me. The news doesn’t usually do this to me.”

“Do you need me to finish your drink?”

Teresa looked down at her glass. She nodded, and passed it over to Thomas. “Yeah, alcohol and emotions aren’t a good mix.” She smiled. It didn’t look real, but Thomas didn’t get the impression that she was pretending to be happier. Rather, he got the impression that she was _trying_ to be happier.

She’d be okay.

  
  


Eventually, the amount of freshers in the bar, almost all of which were getting drunker by the moment, became too much for them, and they decided to call it a night.

This time last year they’d been getting ready for their first night out of university. Tonight they were heading home at 11pm and thinking about going to bed.

Teresa didn’t know how she felt about that.

Something that she _did_ know how she felt about was what she’d seen on the news.

She’d realised that her being upset had been making Thomas upset, so she’d tried to put it out of her mind for the rest of the evening. And she’d succeeded! They’d had a good time!

But now most of the boys had gone, their house being in the other direction from campus to hers. Sonya, Harriet, and Frypan all walked in front of Teresa, with Teresa bringing up the rear, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She wasn’t upset about anything specific that she’d seen on the news that evening. She couldn’t put her finger on _why_ it was bothering her so much tonight. The news was always like that. Everyday there was another attack, another assault, another murder.

Maybe that’s why it was getting to her. It was relentless.

Even though most people in the world were good, and would never dream of hurting anyone else in any way, there were still far too many people that enjoyed hurting others, or who at least didn’t seem to have a problem with it. There were far too many people who thought that the best way to end an argument was with a knife. There were far too many people who’s idea of a fun night was to set a fucking _school_ on fire.

Even one person like that was one too many.

Those arsonists were probably going to be let go after a year. So were the people who abused and neglected those care home residents. And no amount of jail time would make up for the fact that a fifteen year old’s life had been snatched away from them.

There were good people in the world, but there were bad people in the world, too. And as long as the world had bad people in it, then it would be plagued with disaster. There was no escaping it.

_SMACK_

Teresa stopped walking.

Something had fallen to the ground. Something had fallen to the ground right in front of her. If it had fallen so close to her that if it had been even an inch off course it would’ve probably hit her head.

She looked up.

She hadn’t been walking past any buildings, so the thing couldn’t have been thrown out of a window. There weren’t any trees, so it couldn’t have fallen out of a tree either.

She looked around.

Aside from her friends, who were in front of her, there wasn’t anybody else around. Nobody could’ve thrown it at her. And besides, the item’s trajectory as it had hit the ground had suggested that it had fallen from above.

But there wasn’t anything above her except the sky.

Had it fallen out of the sky?

She picked the object up.

It was a notebook.

A notebook had fallen out of the sky?

The notebook was black, and softbound. The cover was entirely plain except for two words written on the front.

_Death Note_

“Hey, Teresa!”

Teresa looked up. Frypan had turned and was yelling back at her, gesturing for her to hurry up.

“Sorry!” she called back, stuffing the notebook into her bag, and she ran to catch up.

When they got home, Sonya and Harriet went straight upstairs to one of their rooms, and Frypan collapsed onto one of the sofas in the living room. Teresa went up to her own room, and closed the door behind her.

She opened her laptop, tapped a few of the keys to make it wake up, and typed in her password. While she waited for it to load, she got the mysterious notebook out of her bag.

How on Earth had it fallen out of the sky like that?

She flicked through it, but none of the pages had any writing on. The notebook was completely blank.

No, wait. Not completely. The inside front cover _did_ have writing on.

The writing was in white ink, and the handwriting was somewhat difficult to read. But it didn’t take Teresa too much effort to decipher it.

_‘The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die.’_

What the fuck?

Teresa sat in her desk chair and put the open notebook down on her desk.

There was no way that this was for real. Obviously she was being pranked. Was she seriously supposed to believe that writing someone’s name in a notebook would cause them to die?

No way. 

But...

The notebook had appeared out of nowhere. That alone was strange. If she’d been able to see who it had belonged to, then she would’ve been completely sure that what it was saying was fake.

But she had no idea where the notebook had come from, and so there was doubt.

Just a tiny speck of doubt, but it was there.

She read more of the text.

_‘This notebook will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing their name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.’_

_‘If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person’s name, it will happen.’_

_‘If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.’_

_‘After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.’_

This seemed like a lot of thought to go into for something that was just a prank.

The open notebook sat in the middle of her desk, staring up at her.

The pages were whiter than anything she’d ever seen before.

Her laptop made a noise, tearing her attention away. She pushed the notebook to the side and pulled the laptop closer to her. She entered her password and, while Steam and Discord ran their automatic updates, she opened a web browser and-

Her phone chimed.

It was a breaking news alert.

As she read the notification, horror and disgust filled her.

The day’s news had been bad enough as it was, and now this?

Abandoning her plan to see what Youtube had decided to recommend to her, Teresa opened iPlayer instead, and opened the livestream of the BBC News channel.

There was live coverage.

“Accounts from those who were able to get out do vary, but it appears that there are still over fifteen people still inside, who are being used as hostages,” said the reporter. “The cinema building is currently surrounded by police officers, who are preparing to send a trained negotiator inside. The suspect is Callum Hardy, age 47, and the police are asking that his associates call the number below and share any information they have on him, as it may make the difference in saving the lives of the hostages. Hardy is armed and dangerous...” the reporter kept talking, but it all started to blur in Teresa’s mind.

A picture of Hardy appeared on the right hand side of the screen and stayed there.

Those poor people. They’d gone to see a film on a Sunday evening, and ended up being taken hostage by a madman.

They might be killed.

There were probably kids in there.

Teresa looked over to the open notebook.

She had the man’s name, and she had his face. She didn’t know him, so he could never be connected back to her. And if the notebook worked, and the man really did die, she’d find out right away.

If she was going to test the notebook, this was the perfect opportunity.

She reached for a pen.

No, she couldn’t. If Hardy really died, then _she_ would’ve killed him. She didn’t want to be a killer. And besides, there wasn’t any _point_ in testing the notebooks, because it was very obviously just a prank.

But if it was just a prank, then surely there wasn’t any harm in testing it?

She picked up a pen.

She looked at the screen and memorised Callum Hardy’s face as best as she could.

Then, keeping his face in her mind, she wrote his name into the notebook.

The glittery blue ink stood out against the white nothingness of the page.

As Teresa stared at the name, at what she’d written in the notebook, she felt a pit in her stomach that felt weirdly familiar.

It took her a few seconds to place it.

It was the same feeling that she got whenever she played a video game, and realised that she’d passed the point of no return. That she was no longer able to head back, and continue to explore the rest of the game world. That the door had slammed shut behind her. That her only choices now were to either walk forwards to the inevitable final fight, or to reload the game back to before she’d passed that point.

She couldn’t reload reality. Time didn’t do anything except move forwards.

If she’d understood the rules correctly, then Hardy was due to die 40 seconds after his name had been written down.

She watched the screen.

40 seconds passed.

The reporter kept talking. Nothing changed.

Just as she’d thought, then. The notebook wasn’t real. It was just a prank.

She breathed a sigh of relief and went to close the tab. There wasn’t anything she could do to help the hostages, and watching any more of the coverage would just stress her out.

“Wait, what’s this? The hostages are running out of the building?”

Teresa froze, her cursor on the X.

“Police officers are now entering the building,” the reporter said. Their face was filled with confusement and a hint of excitement. “It’s unknown at this stage why the hostages were released, or if there’s anyone else left inside.” There was a pause. The reporter’s mouth dropped open. “Breaking news,” they said, “I am just now receiving word that the man suspected of carrying a weapon into a cinema and taking at least fifteen people hostage, Callum Hardy, is now dead. The police are stressing that they did _not_ kill him. Apparently, the hostages are saying that he suddenly collapsed.”

Callum Hardy was dead.

Callum Hardy had died in a way that would suggest a heart attack.

Callum Hardy had died in a way that would suggest a heart attack roughly 40 seconds after Teresa had written his name in a notebook that said it would do just that.

...It was a coincidence.

It _had_ to be a coincidence.

There was no way that someone could die just from having their name written inside a notebook. It simply wasn’t possible. Heart attacks were caused by clots inside the heart that stopped the bloodflow. Not by someone writing a name down in a notebook, many miles away.

This couldn’t be real.

Teresa pressed down hard on her laptop’s trackpad to close the tab. The reporter’s voice cut off mid-sentence, and an uneasy silence filled Teresa’s room.

She needed some air.

Teresa stood and grabbed her bag off her bed. She opened her bedroom door, and stopped.

Her friends weren’t likely to snoop in her room. But, although the chances of them snooping were tiny, that chance did still exist. And there was no way that she wanted them to discover that notebook.

She put the notebook in her bag and went downstairs.

“Where are you off to?” asked Frypan, as Teresa put on her shoes.

“Oh, um, I was gonna head to Tesco. Want anything?”

There was a Tesco Express ten minutes away from their house, and it was open 24 hours a day. Late night trips there had been common through their first year at uni, and hadn’t stopped over the past month of living in the new house. Frypan wouldn’t be suspicious if she said she was going there.

Not that he had any need to be suspicious anyway, she hadn’t done anything, because Hardy’s death had been a coincidence.

The Tesco was probably full of freshers at the moment, but having a clear destination in mind for her late night walk couldn’t hurt.

“I’m good,” said Frypan. “Thanks though. You be careful out there.”

“I will be,” said Teresa, and she walked out of the house.

It didn’t make any sense for the notebook to have caused Callum Hardy’s death. There was no such thing as a notebook that could be used to kill people in that way. There had never been any record of murder done by writing someone’s name.

But Hardy’s death had matched the rules laid out in the front of the notebook. And if anyone had ever been killed by a notebook like this before, then of course it wouldn’t have been registered as murder. It was the perfect murder weapon. Hardy’s death didn’t look suspicious at all, and Teresa hadn’t been anywhere near him.

She still wasn’t convinced that the notebook was genuine. She knew that she’d need to test it again to be sure. Hardy’s death could’ve easily been a fluke.

If she was going to test it again, then she supposed she should test it on another criminal. But if she picked someone who was too well known, then the details of their death would probably get covered up. She’d need to be able to see results immediately, so that she could confirm whether or not the notebook was real.

That being said, she definitely needed to avoid killing anyone she knew. She didn’t want anything to be linked back to her.

She reached Tesco.

As she’d suspected, it was crawling with freshers. Most of them were buying alcohol, though some of them were also buying food. They’d probably all realised at once that, having only moved into their student accommodation earlier that day, they had nothing to eat or drink, and so had all flocked to the nearest shop to campus to find something.

Teresa and Thomas had done much the same this time last year, so Teresa had no room to judge these freshers now.

Most of the freshers were in small groups, all probably there with their new flatmates. A few people looked like they were drunk already, which didn’t surprise Teresa at all. She and her friends had been drinking earlier, after all, even if she’d only ended up having half of one drink. And the first freshers’ week event was due to start soon. A lot of the people here were probably going to it.

“Hey, you!”

Teresa turned in response to the voice, but they weren’t talking to her.

A few paces behind her was a girl. She looked like she was here alone, and she looked nervous, presumably due to not being comfortable navigating the area around campus yet.

Two boys ran up to her.

“Yeah, you,” one said, and Teresa realised that it was the same one who’d spoken just before and caused her to turn around, “girl with the blonde hair, you here with anyone?”

The girl stopped walking. “Um,” she said. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

The second boy laughed and patted his friend on the chest. “You hear that Jason? She said she didn’t want to talk right now.”

The first boy - Jason - grabbed the girl’s wrist. “If you just gave me a chance, you’d find that I’m great company! My name’s Jason Sellers, what’s yours?”

The girl tried to pull her wrist free, but couldn’t.

“Aw, why are you trying to leave? Here I was thinking we could be friends...”

Teresa had walked far enough away that she couldn’t hear what Jason Sellers and his friend were saying anymore.

She opened her bag and grabbed the pen that was buried at the bottom of it.

She looked back at what was happening.

The girl was still trying to get free, and Jason was still holding on to her. His friend was also still crowding near her. The girl looked terrified.

And nobody was helping her.

She reached into her bag, pretending to search for something, and opened the notebook.

_Jason Sellers traffic accident_

She clicked her pen shut and dropped it back into the depths of her bag.

One way or another, she’d know in 40 seconds.

Jason’s friend reached for the girl, and a look of horror crossed the girl’s face. She shook her head violently and, finally, wrenched her arm free. She took off running, heading away from the Tesco and towards the road. The boys gave chase, not wanting to let her get away.

The girl sprinted across the road.

Jason’s friend stopped.

Jason did not.

And neither did the car.

There was a sickening thud.

The surrounding chatter dropped away as people realised what had just happened.

Jason’s friend began to scream.

Teresa thought she might faint.

Despite the fact that she’d literally reached the shop’s door, she abandoned her Tesco trip. All she wanted was to do was to get as far away from the scene of her crime as possible.

She walked in a daze, not paying close attention to where her feet were taking her and not really caring.

Then she noticed where she was, and stopped.

She’d been heading in the direction of the flat that she and her friends had lived in last year. The flat that was now the home of a new group of freshers. The flat that she’d never see ever again.

The notebook worked.

She’d killed two people.

Two people were dead.

Because of _her._

She was going to be sick.

Somehow, she managed to turn in time so that her vomit landed in the bushes, and not in the middle of the pavement. Once there was nothing left inside her to throw up, and she’d managed to get the retching under control, she forced herself to start walking again.

When she reached the first of the student accommodation buildings, she stopped, moved to the side so that she wouldn't be in anyone's way, and let herself cry.

She was a murderer.

Even if those deaths wouldn’t - couldn’t - ever be linked back to her. Even if she’d never face any consequences for what she’d done. Even if nobody ever knew that someone was responsible for those people’s deaths. She’d know. She’d always know that she’d killed them.

Jason hadn’t even been a criminal. That situation could’ve been diffused without killing him. All that had been needed was for someone nearby to speak up and tell him to fuck off. But she’d decided to use him as a test subject instead, and now he was dead.

She was just like the people she’d felt so much disdain for. The people who were ruining the world for everyone else.

.....

Except killing Hardy when she did had probably saved those hostages’ lives.

Was killing him really so terrible, if it meant that all those other people got to live?

What had Hardy’s life been worth, really?

To say that killing Hardy had been the wrong thing to do would be to say that Hardy’s life had been more important than the lives of the people he’d been threatening to kill. And it wasn’t. If anything, his choice to put other people in danger like that made his life _less_ important.

The world was better off with him dead. The world was safer with him dead.

Hadn’t she been thinking about it earlier? Most people were good, but there were still so many bad people out there. Any sane person would agree that the world would be better off without these people in it. Some people didn’t deserve any part of the lives they had, not when their very existence put others at risk.

The justice system as it was couldn’t be trusted to punish people properly. People who committed minor crimes that didn’t hurt a single soul, like those who stole food so that they wouldn’t starve to death, usually spent years in prison if they got caught, all while the rich and powerful got away with fucking murder. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t just.

And Teresa had been handed a way to get rid of anyone she wanted.

Nobody else was going to do it. Nobody else _could._ She was sure that there wasn’t another notebook like this one. It was unique, and it belonged to her.

She had the power to clean up the world. To save it.

If she didn’t use it, what kind of person would that make her? How would she be able to live with herself? Countless numbers of innocent people would die, would continue to die, all when she had the power to stop it.

There were two kinds of evil people in the world. Those that did evil things, and those that had the power to stop evil things from being done, but who chose to do nothing about it.

Teresa didn’t want to become the second kind. If she didn’t use the Death Note, that’s exactly what she would be.

She wiped away her tears.

She knew what she was going to do.

Even if it cost her everything. Her peace of mind, her sanity, even her own soul, it would all be worth it.

She was going to fix the world.

“Are you alright?”

Teresa had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t seen the boy approach. His face was full of concern, and he looked like he wasn’t sure about what to do.

She nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay. You don’t need to worry.”

The boy nodded, and began to walk away. “Whoever he is,” he called back to her, “he’s not worth it!”

Teresa laughed softly. “You’re not wrong,” she said to herself. “You’re not wrong at all.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> REMINDER: please read the tags, and please recheck them often
> 
> also if anyone's interested, i have a fic series in progess for actual death note, so feel free to check that out!

This wasn’t going to be easy.

If Teresa was really going to commit to fixing the world and getting rid of everyone who humanity was better off without, then she had a Herculean task ahead of her. It was impossible to know the exact figures, but if just 1% of the world’s population were evil, then that was still over 70 million people.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that even with a magical notebook it wasn’t possible for her to be able to kill that many people. Not with the amount of time she could afford to dedicate to her new mission, not with new crimes being committed every day, and not when a large amount of the world’s population didn’t have their names and faces easily available to her.

But a few late nights spent wiping out the leaders of various violent organisations, and the most high profile of serial killers and the like? That was doable. And then she could move on to those who weren’t so famous.

And eventually people would get the message and crimes would stop.

She was thankful that she already had a good VPN, and that she already had Tor installed on her computer. Using those there was no way that her internet search history could be decoded or read by any governments or organisations that might try to stop her. Once the world caught on to what was happening, and it was inevitable that it would, anybody who’d been searching for information about the dead criminals would be suspicious. Then they might start looking for people who’d recently started using these programs immediately before the killings started. But she’d already had and regularly used these programs, as she had done for years. She wouldn’t appear to have made any changes to her routine. She wouldn’t flag any alert systems. Her data was encrypted, and it was safe.

Paying attention in her first few classes of the academic year was difficult. Time spent in class was time spent away from killing criminals. Time spent in class was also time spent away from her bed, which was a feeling that she was more likely to be sharing with the other people in class with her. Unlike them, however, she hadn’t been staying up late watching Netflix, or partying, or whatever else. She’d been staying up late to get a head start on cleansing the world of its rot.

But, after she caught herself dozing off in the middle of her Monday afternoon lecture for the third time in the space of about ten minutes, she decided that making sure that she got enough sleep at night needed to take a higher priority. She couldn’t fix the world if she couldn’t stay awake, and she had a degree to earn as well.

It would slow down her progress, but that was just how it was going to have to be.

In the meantime, she could keep herself awake by looking up people to kill that night. She hadn’t brought the Death Note with her to class. She didn’t want to risk losing it, or damaging it, or for someone else to somehow realise what she had. But she could use Google on her phone easily enough, and note down names for later.

Nobody cared that she wasn’t paying attention to the lecture. Half the room wasn’t paying attention to the lecture. There was a guy two rows down playing a very intense looking game of Slither.io, and most of the people sitting near him were watching his screen rather than what the lecturer was doing.

She could’ve brought the notebook itself to class and nobody would’ve noticed.

The societies’ fair was on Tuesday. All of the university’s non-sports related societies set up stalls in the sport’s hall and tried to convince people to join them.

Through her first year, the only society that Teresa had joined was Pride. By the end of the year, her whole first year flat - her whole friendship group - had joined, and they’d already confirmed their membership for the year ahead.

Teresa and Thomas had talked at length over summer about wanting to join another society, but they hadn’t been able to agree on which one to join, and so had agreed to go around the societies’ fair together.

Teresa didn’t think that she wanted to join another society anymore. She had something else that her time was better spent doing.

But she didn’t want to blow her brother off. He didn’t deserve that.

She needed to act as normal as possible. Just as there would be a lot of people who supported her actions, and who knew that she was doing the right thing, there would also be a lot of people who didn’t understand, and who would possibly turn her in to the authorities if they knew what she was doing. She had no way of knowing who was who, so she had to keep what she was doing a secret from everyone. Even from her own family.

She couldn’t afford to act differently at all.

If Thomas did end up picking a society, then Teresa could just act like it didn’t interest her that much. There weren’t any rules saying that they had to be glued to each other. Thomas could join a new society without her.

Almost as soon as they stepped into the hall, Thomas got drawn into a conversation with someone from the philosophy society. Neither of them did philosophy. Neither of them were going to join the philosophy society. And yet Thomas was too polite to tell the person to go away.

Teresa waited patiently next to them for a few minutes, just in case Thomas did genuinely want to be having this conversation. Then her patience ran out, and she cut in.

“Sorry,” she said, “but we’re kinda in a rush. Maybe next time.”

“Of course,” said the philosophy society person, and they turned away.

“Thanks,” said Thomas.

“I’m not always gonna be here to save you from awkward situations like that,” said Teresa.

“Yeah, I know,” said Thomas. “I just didn’t want to be mean.”

“It’s not mean to tell someone that they’re wasting their time,” said Teresa. “Now you’re not trapped in that conversation, we can move on, and they can talk to someone who’s more likely to want to join them. It’s a win-win.”

Thomas shrugged. “A couple of minutes of my life spent talking to them isn’t the end of the world.”

They gave the political societies a wide berth. That was decidedly not the kind of scene that either of them were interested in.

“Have you heard the news lately?” asked Thomas.

“Not really,” said Teresa. “Look, the cocktail society’s over there, didn’t you say you were interested in that?”

“Three mafia leaders were found dead last night,” said Thomas, ignoring what Teresa had just said. _“And_ two different dictators’ deaths were confirmed early this morning.”

She schooled her face into an expression of shock. “Really?” she said. “That’s a lot to happen at once.”

“And get this,” said Thomas. “They all died of heart attacks.”

“Oh,” said Teresa. “For a moment there I was thinking that it was a coordinated attack or something. That would’ve been interesting.”

Thomas shook his head, and stepped out of a passer-by’s way. “Some people think that it _is_ a coordinated attack.”

Teresa had to be careful. Thomas was her brother, yes. But that didn’t mean that he would be on her side with this. And while the world at large would eventually accept that there was indeed someone behind the killings, it would be suspicious if she jumped on that bandwagon so early. It would look better for her if she was proved to be wrong about it later on.

Not that she could ever be a suspect. The Death Note was the only evidence, and nobody knew she had it. So long as she kept it secret, she was safe.

But it was safer to be overcautious anyway.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me that there are some people out there who think that _heart attacks_ can be used to deliberately kill people? And that there’s someone out there who’s actively targeting people with them? And here I was thinking that human stupidity couldn’t get any worse.”

Thomas laughed. “You’ve got to admit, if it’s a coincidence, then it’s a _hell_ of a coincidence, isn’t it? Heart attacks happen, yes, but they don’t happen to this many important, and healthy, people all at the same time. That’s just impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” said Teresa. “Just unlikely. And it happened, so saying that it _doesn’t_ happen is a bit pointless.”

“Yeah, well,” said Thomas, bringing his arms up in an exaggerated shrug. “Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“Yes,” said Teresa. “It’s definitely weird. But I doubt that there’s a person behind it.”

“A couple of people on Reddit have said that it could be divine retribution.”

Teresa shouldn’t have been surprised that there were people saying this, but she was. And she wasn’t happy about it. She wasn’t a God, and she didn’t want to be venerated as one. She was a person who’d been presented with the opportunity to do some good, and she was using it to its fullest extent. The last thing she wanted or needed was people to start thinking that a God was involved in any of this.

She laughed.

“Those people need to go outside,” she said.

“So,” said Thomas, “you’re saying it’s not a coordinated attack by people, and also it’s not some kind of Godly act. What does that leave?”

“It leaves plain old heart attacks,” said Teresa. “It’s really not that exciting.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Thomas. “It’s probably very exciting for the people who those people were due to kill, and who are now still alive.”

See? _That_ was why she was doing this. To save innocent people, who would otherwise become the victims of the people she killed.

She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Those people must be pretty happy right now. I know I would be.”

“Should we check out the bad film society?” asked Thomas, dropping the subject.

Teresa nodded. “Let’s go.”

  
  


An emergency ICPO meeting was called on Wednesday. It wasn’t feasible to fly every representative from all over the world to one single location at such short notice, so the meeting was held online.

Newt watched the screen carefully.

“In the past seventy two hours,” said one of the American representatives, “over thirty people in prison have died of heart attacks with no known cause. We have also received reports of wanted criminals having died of heart attacks in the same period. They may be more that we are unaware of.”

“Unaware of?” said someone else. “It’s heart attacks, they’re not linked.”

“The USA isn’t the only country to report a spike in these deaths,” said another. “It’s been happening all over the world.”

“There must be some group behind this. It can only be a coordinated attack.”

“There is no proof of that.”

“Can you come up with another explanation?”

“You can’t seriously think that it’s a coincidence?”

“You can’t seriously think it’s _not_ a coincidence?”

“Does it matter either way? It’s just criminals that are dying. You could argue that, whatever’s happening, it’s a good thing.”

“A _good thing?_ How can you say that? Last time I checked, murder is still murder! It doesn’t matter who the victim is!”

“Can you really call a heart attack murder?”

“You can when it’s inflicted on purpose?”

“And where’s your proof of that?”

“The pattern suggests that it is.”

“If this _is_ an intentional act, how is it even being done? How is it possible?”

“If you ask me, the only organisations that could possibly have the ability to do something like this are the FBI or CIA, so we should probably be looking at America for an explanation.”

“I dare you to say that again!”

“Enough!” said the meeting’s chairman, muting everyone except for himself. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we allow this meeting to descend into petty squabbling. Anyone who speaks out of turn from this point on is getting muted for the rest of the meeting.”

People took his threat seriously, and when he unmuted everyone, they didn’t launch back into the argument.

“We’re never going to get to the bottom of it ourselves,” said one of the Australian representatives. “Our best chance of finding out who’s behind this, if anyone is, is to call in Newt.”

“Newt?” said the American representative. “The detective? Doesn’t he only take cases that interest him? As far as I’m aware, no single country has a solid history of working with him. We can’t count on him.”

“Newt is already looking into this case.”

Newt had to laugh.

When he’d tapped into the meeting, he hadn’t decided yet whether or not he was going to make his presence known. He’d known that Alby was watching as well, and they’d agreed to wait and see what the best course of action to take was.

If he was going to let the ICPO know that he was watching, this was the moment to do it, for the drama of it all if for no other reason. Alby hadn’t even needed to double check that with Newt to know that.

“Who’s there?” asked the chairman.

“I’m Newt’s public liaison. My name is Alby. Newt is listening in on this call. If you can agree to grant him control of this case, and to follow his instructions, then we can begin tracking down this mysterious killer immediately.”

The ICPO members quickly voted on these things, and agreed to pass control to Newt.

Then they all went quiet to listen to what Newt had to say.

Newt did not turn his camera on, and he turned on a voice modulator program. Everyone who was listening would hear a robotic voice speaking instead of his own, and they would not see his face. These were the standard precautions that he always took when investigating a case. Once upon a time, it had seemed excessive.

It didn’t seem so excessive now.

“Hello everyone,” he said. “I’m Newt. Thank you for agreeing to work with me. Your cooperation will be invaluable. In particular, I require the help and cooperation of the United Kingdom’s police forces.”

“What?” said one of the UK’s representatives, a woman with long dark hair.

“I have reason to suspect that the perpetrator of these killings, if such a perpetrator exists, is based inside the UK.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “How can you be sure?”

“Right now, it’s just a hunch,” said Newt. “But with your help, I should be able to prove it very quickly.”

The woman muted her microphone and said something to the man sitting next to her. Newt didn’t bother reading her lips. She’d let him know their decision as soon as they’d made it, he could wait a few seconds.

She unmuted her microphone.

“What do you need?”

Newt smiled.

  
  


Before she’d found the Death Note, Teresa had promised herself that she was going to take her studies seriously this year.

She hadn’t been overly concerned with her grades last year because it was her first year. First year didn’t count towards your final grade, so all you needed to do was make sure to pass. She’d done that without much hassle. But if she’d put any effort in, then she’d have done much better.

She could get a 2:1 if she studied a reasonable amount. If she really tried hard, she could even get a 1st.

Her ordinary life wasn’t going to stop just because she had the Death Note. Her grades still mattered. She still had to do well.

So she wasn’t spending all of her free time writing names in the notebook. She had to study as well.

And she also had to spend _some_ time doing something else. She couldn’t afford to burn herself out. If she wanted to make a significant and long lasting change to the world, then she had to keep this up over a prolonged period of time. Possibly for the rest of her life. Burning out early wasn’t an option. She had to let herself take breaks. 

It was on one such break that she was scrolling through Instagram, and came across a post from Brenda.

It had been posted earlier that day. It was a selfie. She was sitting alone, next to the campus lake. The caption was a paragraph, and Teresa read through all of it.

_‘It’s a new semester, and it’s a new year. Last year was incredibly difficult for me, for a lot of reasons. I’ve been public about some of them, and I’ve been private about some of them, but the end result is that my first year of university wasn’t a very good time for me. Some of what made last year so terrible isn’t over yet. I still have a court case to look forward to, and I’m still figuring out how to live on my own. But I’m alive. I’m alive, and life goes on, and this is a new beginning. I’m looking forward to hopefully making some new friends at uni this year. What are you looking forward to?’_

Brenda was beautiful, and Brenda was sad, and Teresa wanted to reach out to her.

But she barely knew her. If Teresa reached out to her, then Brenda might think that Teresa was trying to leech off her social media following. Or worse, Brenda might think that Teresa pitied her. Even if the truth was that Teresa had been crushing on Brenda since before she knew that Brenda was an influencer, and since before Brenda’s parents had been murdered, that wouldn’t matter. She should’ve tried harder to befriend Brenda before everything went wrong. It was too late now.

Teresa double tapped the photo to like it and scrolled on.

Then she stopped.

She might not be able to talk to Brenda, but there _was_ something that she could do for her.

It didn’t take long for her to find a selection of run of the mill murderers. It took even less time for her to kill them all.

And right in the middle of the pack was the man who’d killed Brenda’s parents.

It was done. He’d been punished. He’d never hurt anyone else again. And Brenda would have one less thing to worry about.

Teresa breathed a sigh of relief.

Helping people. That’s why she was doing this. She’d never be thanked, not personally, she couldn’t ever risk revealing herself. But that was okay. She didn’t need to be thanked. Knowing that there would be people out there who were happy and safe because of her actions was more than enough.

“It seems you’ve taken quite a liking to it.”

Teresa jumped out of her chair and spun around to see who had spoken.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.

There was a man in her room, standing next to her bed. At a glance, he looked like a normal man. He was white, wasn’t particularly tall or short, and had dark hair.

But he was also standing unnaturally still. And the longer Teresa looked at him, the more _wrong_ he started to appear. She couldn’t put her finger on what specifically was making her skin crawl, but it only took a few seconds of knowing he was there for her to be overwhelmed with the desire to get very, _very_ far away from him. Something about him convinced her that he had no intention of letting her get away from him alive.

She didn’t think that it was just that there was a strange man in her bedroom, and that he apparently hadn’t disturbed any of her housemates on the way up. That was a factor, yes. But no human could possibly be standing _that_ still.

Teresa stumbled backwards and collided with her desk, sending a few loose sheets of paper sailing to the floor.

She glanced at her bedroom door. It was shut, and locked. If she ran, would she make it out before he could reach her?

“There’s no point running away,” said the man, his voice calm and amused. “I’ll just follow you. And don’t think any of your friends can help you.”

Teresa clenched and unclenched her fists. “Get out, or I’ll call the police.”

The man laughed. “Go on then,” he said. “Call them. I’d be interested to see how they plan on arresting a shinigami.”

“A what?”

“A shinigami,” said the man with a smile. “It means a God of Death. That’s what I am. I’m a shinigami. So if the police tried to arrest me, I can’t see it going too well for them.”

Teresa swallowed. She pushed out all thoughts about it not being possible that Gods of Death, or shinigami, existed or about it not being possible that there was one in her room. Evidently, they were real, and there was one in her room. And she’d already accepted the existence of the Death Note. It shouldn’t be a shock that there were other supernatural things that existed.

Shit, the Death Note.

This was probably connected to the Death Note.

“Why are you here?”

The man didn’t stop smiling.

It was creeping Teresa out.

“You have something that used to belong to me.”

“You mean the notebook?”

“I do indeed,” said the man. “I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that it’s no ordinary notebook.”

Teresa nodded.

She didn’t see him move, but suddenly he was right in front of her, almost pressed up against her, peering over her shoulder at the open notebook. She jerked, and shoved him away.

Or, she tried to. Her hands went right through him.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. He was standing next to her bed again. She hadn’t seen him move this time either. “You can only touch me if I allow you to do so.”

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“I’m impressed,” he said, ignoring her. “That isn’t the first Death Note to somehow make its way to the human world, but I’ve never heard of a human who’s written this many names before. They usually get scared and lose their nerve after just a handful. You’ve filled up pages and pages. The ink hasn’t even had time to dry on those last few.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

This, finally, got the man - the shinigami - to react. His smile dimmed and he titled his head in what resembled confusion, but Teresa wasn’t convinced that it was genuine. “What am I going to do to you? What do you mean by that?”

There was a very real chance that she was about to die.

She would be brave. She wouldn’t beg. She’d done some good. It wasn’t as much as she’d hoped to be able to do, but her actions had definitely saved some people. She’d made sure that Brenda, and some others like her, wouldn’t suffer quite as much.

If she died now, it wouldn’t be okay. It would be so far from okay that okay wouldn’t even be on the horizon. But it wouldn’t be a complete waste. Her life wouldn’t have been a complete waste.

“I took something that belongs to you, and I used it for my own ends,” said Teresa. “And now you’re here. So if you’re gonna kill me, can’t you just get on with it?”

The shinigami’s possibly-fake confusion cleared.

He laughed.

“That’s hilarious!” he said. “No, I’m not gonna do anything to you. From the moment that notebook landed in the human world, it became a part of it. From the moment you picked it up, ownership of it transferred to you. There aren’t any rules against using your own property.”

“It belongs to me?”

“It does,” said the shinigami. “And it’s up to you what you do with it.”

Teresa glanced down at the notebook, still lying open on her desk. “There has to be a catch,” she said.

She looked up to see the shinigami was grinning. His grin was just on the cusp of being too wide for his face. It wasn’t so wide as to be unbelievable, but it _was_ wide enough to be creepy.

He wasn’t human. With every moment, Teresa had less and less trouble believing this fact.

“There _is_ a catch,” he said. “Two of them, in fact.”

She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she did her best not to show her impatience, and said, “What are they?”

“The first is that when a shinigami drops a notebook into the human world, they have to stay with whichever human owns the notebook until that human passes it on, gives it up, or dies. That means you’re stuck with me.”

He winked.

Teresa shuddered.

“How far away from me can you go?”

“Fourteen kilometers,” he said. “But I’m thinking that I’ll stay a lot closer to you than that. I wouldn’t want to miss anything that you get up to with that notebook.”

Teresa nodded absently, considering what this meant for her. “I don’t have a choice about this, do I?”

“Hey!” said the shinigami. “I don’t have a choice about it either! I’d love to watch how this plays out from the shinigami world, but I’m not allowed. I _have_ to stay down here with you. Trust me, it’s not ideal for me either.”

Teresa knew that it wasn’t much, but knowing that the shinigami wasn’t completely and utterly happy with being here made the idea of being stuck with him a little better.

“What’s the other catch?”

“When it’s time for you to die, I’ll be the one writing your name in my Death Note.”

Teresa blinked. She nodded, and turned away from him.

He laughed.

“You can always give it back,” he said. “You picked it up, but you don’t have to keep it. These catches will only apply to you as long as you own the notebook. Of course, as soon as you don’t own the notebook anymore, you’ll lose all memory of its existence.”

“I’m not giving it back.”

“Oh?” said the shinigami. “That’s fine.”

“Why me?” said Teresa, turning back to face him. “Why did you choose to give the notebook to me.”

The shinigami laughed.

He seemed to like doing that.

“You think I chose you?” he said. “I did nothing of the sort. I just happened to drop it in this general area, and you just happened to be the one who picked it up.”

“You practically dropped it on my head.”

The shinigami shrugged. “That’s not my problem.”

“Why did you drop it at all? Was it an accident?”

“No,” he said. “I dropped it because I was bored. The shinigami world is so monotonous. All there is to do is kill humans and play shitty board games against one another, it’s tiring. I thought that, if I dropped my spare notebook, then maybe something interesting would happen.” He, somehow, grinned even wider. “What do you think? Are you gonna be interesting enough for me?”

Teresa understood the implied threat in his words.

As long as she had the notebook, he was going to kill her one day. He’d probably kill her the moment that she became boring.

“I’m using the notebook to change the world for the better,” she said. “Is that interesting enough for you?”

“Potentially,” said the shinigami. “It depends.”

“I’m using it to get rid of the world’s violent criminals,” said Teresa. “Soon people will notice that people who hurt others are being killed. It should discourage people from committing those sorts of crimes in the first place, and the world will become a safer place for everyone.” She smiled weakly. “So if it’s just chance that I’m the one who you dropped the notebook in front of, then it worked out well.”

The shinigami hummed in thought. “But, say you’re successful, and you manage to kill every murderer and rapist and such like that exists in the world, wouldn’t that make you a mass murderer yourself? You’d be the only bad person left.”

Teresa sighed, and leant against the edge of her desk. “Yeah,” she said. “I know. But that’s a price I’m willing to pay. The world is more important than me.”

“Hmm,” said the shinigami. “If that’s the way you truly feel, then I’m not going to argue.”

“If we’re going to be stuck with each other, then you should probably know my name,” said Teresa. She stuck out her hand for the shinigami to shake. “I’m-”

“You’re Teresa Agnes,” said the shinigami. He took no notice of her hand. “Shinigami know everybody’s names instantly.”

“Oh,” said Teresa, dropping her hand. “Okay. What’s your name?”

The shinigami was still grinning.

“My name is Janson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone wants/needs an explanation of how university in the uk works then lmk and i'll give you a quick rundown. it's not super vital for understanding the fic, the exact way that the uni functions isn't exactly central to the plot, but idk it might help with context :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're participating in any protests, then please be careful and take care of yourself, and if you get a bad feeling about it then leave because your own safety is your own first priority. if you can donate then please donate, and if you can sign petitions (hint: everyone can do this much) then please sign petitions. things can't be allowed stay as they are. black lives matter and have always mattered
> 
> stay safe everyone <3

Teresa ended up giving Janson her old DS to occupy him while she went back to studying.

From time to time she glanced behind her, hoping that he’d been a figment of her imagination, and that he’d be gone. But no. He was still there, lying on her bed and focusing intently on whatever Cooking Mama minigame he was on.

And he wasn’t ever allowed to get further away than 14 kilometers from her.  _ And  _ he’d said that he intended to stay as close to her as possible because he didn’t want to miss anything.

Whenever she’d thought about the possible consequences of using the notebook, being stalked for the rest of her life by a God of Death hadn’t occurred to her.

But she had to draw the line somewhere.

“You’re not staying here while I sleep,” she said, once she’d brushed her teeth and picked up her pyjamas, ready to get changed.

“Why not?” asked Janson.

Teresa couldn’t tell whether he genuinely didn’t understand why she was uncomfortable with the idea of him hanging around while she got changed or slept, or if he was pretending not to understand for his own amusement. Either way, she wasn’t going to relent.

“I’m not explaining it to you,” she said. “You’re not doing it. Go for a walk. Or sit in the cupboard and keep playing your game. I don’t really care what you do, you’re not allowed to stay in here.”

Janson grumbled, but did as he was told. He put Teresa’s DS down and walked out of the room.

Not through the door, though. He walked straight towards the wall next to the window and phased right through it.

Teresa stared after him for a moment.

He wasn’t human. If he was to be believed, he was a  _ God. _ A shinigami. He’d already demonstrated that the laws of physics did not apply to him. The sooner that Teresa accepted this, the better. There wasn’t any point in letting herself waste time being shocked about any of it.

When Teresa woke the next morning, Janson wasn’t in her room. A small part of her brain entertained the possibility that he’d never been there, and that his existence had been a stress induced nightmare, but she knew this wasn’t true. She could tell the difference between reality and dreams, and unsettling as Janson was, he was unfortunately very real.

Just as that thought occurred, he reappeared in her room.

“There were so many people wandering around!” he said. “Don’t most humans try to be inside and asleep during the night?”

“Kinda?” said Teresa. She picked up her phone and checked for any notifications. She had 17 missed messages on the groupchat. “But the university is really close to here, and it’s still freshers’ week. There are events every night.”

“Are you going to any of them?”

“I went to the one on Monday,” she said, skimming through the new messages. Minho and Gally had seen a fox as they walked home at 4am.

“You’re not going to any more?”

“Not this year,” she said, locking her phone and putting it down on her bedside table.

“Awwww,” said Janson. “Those people looked like they were having fun!”

“There will be other, non-fresher events.” Teresa pushed her duvet back and stood. “If you’re going to be hanging around then you’ll get to see one eventually.”

Janson grinned. “I can’t wait.”

Teresa grabbed some clothes from her cupboard. “Stay here,” she said.

Janson nodded.

Teresa left her room, almost walking right into Harriet.

“Sorry!” said Teresa. “I didn’t see you there.”

Harriet had just come out of the bathroom, and was only wearing a towel. Her hair was dry, and had been wrapped into a bun. She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “Bathroom’s free. The water’s really hot today, so be careful you don’t burn yourself.”

“Really hot today?” said Teresa. “It’s got hotter?”

Harriet shrugged. “I don’t get it either, but the hot water feels hotter today than it did yesterday. Fry must’ve messed with the boiler.”

Teresa laughed. “I love how you automatically blame Fry for it.”

“Well,  _ I _ didn’t do it, Sonya didn’t do it, and, going by your reaction, you didn’t do it either. So it can only have been Fry. Unless we have some sort of ghost or poltergeist, and they’re deciding to show themself by fucking with our hot water settings.”

Janson chuckled, and Teresa realised with horror that her bedroom door was still open.

Janson was in plain view.

Even if Harriet didn’t realise what Janson was - and let’s be real, there was no way that she  _ would  _ realise what he was, it just wasn’t possible - she would still be able to see that there was a man in Teresa’s room. A grown man. A grown man that, while his exact age was difficult to determine, still looked to be a lot older than Teresa herself. That was going to raise questions. There was no way that Harriet wasn’t going to ask about it. She cared too much about her friends to just let this slide.

Letting her friends believe that she’d slept with a much older guy was infinitely preferable to them knowing the truth, but that didn’t mean that Teresa relished the idea.

“Are you okay?” asked Harriet.

“Hmm?”

“You look kinda upset,” said Harriet, her smile nearly gone. “Do you feel sick or something?”

....Huh?

Teresa looked behind herself, at Janson.

He waved at her.

Harriet didn’t react at all.

Teresa pulled her bedroom door shut.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve only been awake for five minutes.”

Harriet winced in sympathy. “Morning class?”

“Yeah.”

“Same. It’s too early to be allowed. I’ll let you shower in peace.”

“Thanks.”

Harriet went into her own room, and Teresa went into the bathroom.

Harriet hadn’t been kidding. The hot water was a  _ lot  _ hotter than it had been the day before. When Teresa turned the shower on, she almost yelped in shock when the water hit her. She had to turn the shower dial as far down as it would go without it blasting her with cold water just to make the temperature bearable.

Harriet had blamed Frypan for this.

Teresa knew better.

Once her shower was done and she was dressed, she stormed back into her room to confront Janson.

“We’re gonna need some ground rules.”

Janson, who had resumed playing on the DS, looked up at her with a look of innocence on his face.

“First, like we already said, if I’m getting changed or sleeping, then you make yourself scarce.”

Janson nodded.

“Second, you _don’t_ change any settings we have for the house. You don’t press any buttons. You don’t interact with _anything_ that you haven’t been given explicit permission to touch.”

“But that’s so boring,” he said.

Teresa understood the threat in his words, but didn’t acknowledge it. “My housemates can’t know you’re here,” said Teresa, collapsing in her desk chair. “Nobody can know about the notebook, and they can’t know about you. If you’re rearranging things or pulling pranks then it could cause a lot of problems. It could get me caught. If that happens then it’s over, and you’ll have to go back to being bored all the time”

“I can’t promise not to touch anything,” he said. “But I won’t change the water temperature again.”

“Good,” said Teresa. She stood. “Show me what you did so I can undo it.”

The boiler was in the cupboard under the stairs. The water temperature was controlled by a dial on the front. Janson had twisted it so the temperature was at max. Teresa turned it back down to a reasonable level.

“Hey Tee,” said Sonya as she walked down the stairs. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing the water temperature.”

Janson was standing right next to Teresa.

Surely Sonya would say something?

“Yeah, Harriet mentioned that the water was acting up. Had the dial moved?”

“It had,” said Teresa. “But I think I’ve put it back now.”

“Thanks,” said Sonya. “I don’t want to get burnt.”

Sonya wasn’t going to mention Janson.

It was like she didn’t even know he was there.

“Getting burnt is not a good time,” said Teresa.

Sonya agreed, and retreated back upstairs.

“Explain,” said Teresa, quietly so that there wasn’t a chance that any of her housemates would hear her. “How come Harriet and Sonya aren’t noticing you?”

“Didn’t I mention?” said Janson. “You’re the only one who can see me.”

“Oh.” Teresa closed the cupboard door. “No, you didn’t mention it.” She looked at him. “That makes our lives easier, if they can’t see you.”

“That it does,” agreed Janson.

  
  


Sonya’s phone rang.

She was sitting in the main campus square, eating her lunch, and watching the crowds of people pass through and gather in groups. She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket and put her sandwich down to answer it.

She always answered her phone. She didn’t get many phone calls, and if it was a spam call then it would only take a few seconds of her time. If it was important, then she didn’t want to risk accidentally not answering due to a habit of automatically declining calls. She’d witnessed someone accidentally decline the first call from their parent that they’d got in half a year because of that. She never wanted to be in that position.

“Hey Sonya.”

“Oh, hi!” Sonya closed the lid on her lunch, knowing that she wouldn’t go back to it for a while. “How are things?”

“Things are good.”

“How did the case in Korea go?”

Her brother made a non-committal noise. “It went okay. It was over in less than two days.”

Sonya laughed. “That’s not surprising.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “It was the guy who first contacted me.”

“Oh, huh.” Sonya tucked one of her legs underneath her. “That’s kinda uncommon.”

“It’s more common than you’d think,” he said. “People call me in, thinking that it’ll remove them from suspicion, and that I’ll decide that some other sucker had to have done it. It never works. I always catch them.”

“Well,” said Sonya. “As far as you know, it’s never worked. If it  _ had  _ worked, you’d never know any different, would you?”

“Hush.”

Sonya laughed. “I’m right!”

“Look, I called you for a reason.”

“So you weren’t just checking in with your sister? I see how it is.”

He laughed. “Sorry, sorry. How are things with you?”

“Things here are good! Classes are fine, but it’s only week one, so they still have a chance to ramp up. There haven’t been any house fights, but again, it’s week one. There isn’t really anything of note to report. Okay, your turn!”

“Alright,” he said. “I’m taking on a new case.”

Sonya rolled her eyes, not caring that he couldn’t see her. “Naturally.”

“Hey!” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice. “I didn’t interrupt you while you were talking.”

“Sorry,” she lied, knowing that he saw right through her. “Continue.”

“This new case is probably going to mean that I’ll be flying back to England tomorrow. I don’t know for sure just yet, but I’ll know whether or not I need to by tonight. Obviously, you can’t tell anyone else, but I wanted to let you know.”

This gave Sonya pause.

Her brother travelling around the world for his cases wasn’t unusual. Unless a case was ridiculously easy, and hardly any of the cases that he took were, he always tried to base himself inside the country that the case was from. It made it easier for him to investigate. If he needed to communicate with any law enforcement officers, then being in the same general area, or at least the same time zone, was a massive help. Also, being nearby helped him gain a better understanding of the surrounding area. Knowledge that he had gained from physically travelling to the country that a case had been based in had been instrumental in solving said case on more than one occasion.

But if he didn’t know whether or not he’d be going somewhere? That meant that he wasn’t sure where the case he was looking into was based. He thought that it might be England, but apparently wouldn’t be sure of that fact until tonight.

_ That  _ was unusual.

“How can you not know where you need to be?” asked Sonya. “Isn’t that part made clear by who contacted you?”

“I was contacted by the ICPO,” he said. “Or, rather, I contacted them. But they were going to contact me anyway. Alby revealed my interest after they’d decided to get me involved.”

Sonya hummed in thought. “You must really be interested in this case if you’re taking the initiative like that. When was the last time you sought out a case for yourself? Wasn’t it that thing with the football player?”

He laughed. “Yes, it was. But this case is an interesting one, and there was no way I wasn’t going to at least look into it.”

“And you’ll know for sure where you’re headed tonight?”

“Uh...”

“Newt,” said Sonya, “what’s happening tonight?”

“Are you in public?”

“Nobody’s listening to me, nobody cares what I’m saying, and nobody can hear your side of the conversation. Answer my question.”

“You’ll know it when it happens,” he said. “If it goes according to plan, then I’ll know where I’m going. It might not work. That’s always a possibility.”

“You’re safe though, right?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Okay,” said Sonya. “Just be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Sonya scoffed.

Newt laughed. “Maybe don’t answer that.”

“You  _ are  _ careful,” said Sonya. “It’s just that sometimes you really aren’t.”

“If I do end up in England, maybe we can arrange a time to meet up?”

“You think you’ll be in the country long enough for that?”

“Yes, I do.”

Most of his cases only took a few days. Some took a couple of weeks. Only one or two had taken over a month. A month would probably be just enough time for them to organise when Sonya could travel away from uni for a weekend, without having to pay a premium for booking train tickets too close to the journey.

“Must be one hell of a case.”

“It is,” he said. “It really is.”

  
  


Brenda’s phone rang.

She hadn’t put her phone on silent or do not disturb. She’d left her earbuds plugged in so any noise made by notifications wouldn’t be heard out loud. This way she could watch any messages that she received come in without disturbing the seminar or having to switch her phone between different modes.

She knew that most people had their phones on silent at all times, but she liked the noises.

But having your earbuds plugged into your phone didn’t stop it from ringing out loud if it received a phone call.

She scrambled to turn it off as everyone in the room turned to stare at her.

“Sorry,” she said, and she glanced at the screen, expecting it to be spam.

It was not spam.

It was Alec, the lead detective on the case of her parents’ murder.

“Sorry,” she said again. “I need to take this.”

She left the classroom and answered the phone.

“Were you in class?” asked Alec.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Brenda. “What is it?”

“It’s going to be in the news by now, but I thought you’d prefer to hear it from me.”

“Hear what?”

“Marcus Tudyk died last night.”

Brenda froze. “What?”

“They haven’t completed the post-mortem yet, but they’re thinking that it was a heart attack.”

“But that’s not possible. He was healthy. How can he be dead?”

Alec sighed. “You’re a good kid, and you’ve been through a lot already, which is why I’m not gonna give you some crap about how we have everything under control when we don’t. You’re right. He was in perfect health. There was no reason that he could’ve been at risk of having a sudden heart attack. Except he  _ did  _ have a sudden heart attack, and now he’s dead.”

“But he can’t be dead! He needs to be punished! He needs to go to prison! He needs-”

“He’s not the only one this has happened to,” said Alec. He sounded tired. “In the past few days, countless criminals have died of heart attacks. We’re looking into it, but we don’t have any solid answers as of yet.”

He said a few more things about being transferred to the investigation into this string of suspected murders before hanging up, but Brenda barely heard him.

The man who had killed her parents was dead.

  
  


Teresa had collapsed on her bed, idly scrolling through Twitter on her phone.

“What are you doing?” asked Janson. “Are you finding more people to kill?”

“Not right now,” said Teresa. She clicked on the thumbnail of what turned out to be a very cute video of some puppies going down some stairs. She hit the heart icon to like it and continued scrolling. “I’ll get on that in a few minutes. They’re not going anywhere, and if I don’t take some time for myself then I’ll burn myself out.”

She clicked on a tweet about something that some celebrity had said earlier that day.

It was a pretty gross thing to say, and for a moment she considered putting that celebrity’s name into the notebook. But no, she was still nowhere near done with the backlist of violent criminals. Getting rid of bigots was probably a few years out. It would have its time. She couldn’t do everything at once. For now she needed to keep her message and actions focused.

Janson lay on the bed next to her and peered over her shoulder at her phone screen. “So you’re looking at people yelling at each other?”

She sighed and exited the app. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

Janson sat bolt upright and grinned. “What movie do you suggest?”

Teresa sat up. “Do you know what kind of movie you’d like?”

“Nope!” Janson grinned. “I’ve never watched a human movie before. What kind of movie do you think I’d like?”

She thought about it. “I have no idea.” She stood and turned towards her shelves. She had a small collection of DVDs there, next to her books, and she looked through them. “I guess we could watch one that I like, and we’ll see how you feel about it.”

“That works for me,” said Janson.

He lay back down on the bed.

“Sit up,” said Teresa.

Janson did so, but he looked confused. “Aren’t we going to watch a movie?”

“Yes,” said Teresa, “but I’m gonna sit in my chair as we watch it, and my computer is staying on my desk. You can sit on the bed if you want, but if you lie down like that then you won’t be able to see the screen, and there won’t be any point.”

Janson pouted. “I thought that we’d bring the computer over and lie down together to watch it.”

Teresa blinked. “Stop being creepy.”

Janson tilted his head in a show of innocent confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” she said, turning away from him and focusing fully on her DVD collection. “I’m not lying in bed with you. I’m not letting you watch while I get changed or while I sleep. If I ever have someone over, you are not allowed to stay in the room. I have boundaries. You  _ will  _ respect them.”

“Or what?”

She turned to face him. “Or I burn the notebook. You’ll have wasted your chance down here, and it will be entirely your own fault.”

For the first time, Janson looked worried. The worry was slight, and Teresa could tell that he was trying to hide it, but it was there. “You wouldn’t,” he said, the tone of his voice also betraying his fear. “You like that notebook too much. If you burn it, you won’t get to fix the world like you want to.”

“If I burn it, then I won’t remember ever having the chance to fix it, and I won’t have to deal with  _ you  _ anymore. You said that you’re here for your own entertainment, and that’s fine. But there are lines. Don’t cross them.”

Janson wordlessly slid so he was sitting on the edge of her bed.

Teresa grabbed a DVD at random off her shelf.

Calender Girls. Okay then.

But, just as Teresa plugged the portable disk drive into her laptop, her phone chimed in her hand, taking her attention away.

It wasn’t a chime that she recognised.

She put the DVD case down and looked at her phone screen.

_ ‘EMERGENCY ALERT. EMERGENCY ALERT. LIVE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANISATION (ICPO). WATCH NOW.’ _

Interpol had sent an alert directly to her phone.

A spike of fear pierced her.

She slowly sat in her desk chair and clicked on the notification.

A livestream opened.

There was a man standing at a podium. The man was tall, with broad shoulders, and looked to be quite muscular. His hair was blond and long enough to reach his shoulders. The podium was blank, and there wasn’t anything behind the man. He was alone on screen.

He stared silently at the camera.

Teresa got the impression that he was watching her.

But that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

She’d never got an emergency alert to her phone like that before. She hadn’t known that something like that was even possible.

Was she the only one who was seeing this?

She couldn’t be. There was no way they could’ve narrowed it down to her. Without the notebook, there was no way of tracing the deaths to her, and  _ she  _ had the notebook.

She stood, crossed to her bedroom door, and yelled out, “Is anyone else seeing this weird alert on their phone?”

“Yeah!” Frypan yelled back.

Teresa closed her bedroom door.

It wasn’t just her.

She was safe.

The man on the screen cleared his throat, and began to speak.

“Hello. This is an emergency broadcast that is being streamed played on all channels, and to all mobile devices, across the world. I apologise for the interruption. This will not take long.

“I head up an International Police Task Force, which includes all member nations. My name is Newton Isaacs, though I am more commonly known as Newt.”

Teresa had heard of Newt before! He was a famous freelance detective, who was notoriously difficult to get a hold of or to get to collaborate on any particular case due to him only taking cases that interested him. But he was a genius, and out of the many, many cases he’d taken over the course of his career, he’d solved every single one.

But he never showed his face or revealed his name beyond his moniker ‘Newt’. That was his whole thing!

And now he was making a public appearance?

What was going on?

“Over the past few days, something extraordinary and terrible had been taking place. Criminals around the world are being murdered by a serial killer. The internet has, for some reason, taken to calling them ‘Kira’. I shall do the same.”

Thanks to Thomas, Teresa had known that the killings were getting noticed by some of the general public, but she hadn’t known that they’d given the person doing the killing a name.

She didn’t hate it.

“The exact number of victims that Kira has killed thus far is unknown, but is estimated to be in the hundreds, and is only expected to increase. Make no mistake, this is murder. I consider this crime to be one of the most atrocious acts of murder in history.”

Janson started to laugh.

“Kira,” said Newton Isaacs, “I don’t know  _ how  _ you’ve been able to murder so many people in such a short space of time, but I’ve got a pretty good idea about  _ why  _ you’re doing this. I can guess what you’re hoping to achieve. But you must understand that what you’re doing right now is evil.”

Teresa sighed.

She didn’t need some famous detective to tell her that. She already knew. What she was doing, her actions as Kira, they were evil alright. They were evil, and they served a greater good. The world was more important than her. She did awful things, so that in the long run, innocent people would be saved.

She didn’t enjoy being evil, but she was willing to bear that burden.

“I want the world at large to be reassured,” Newton Isaacs continued, “that I will not rest until I have tracked down the person or persons behind the Kira killings and brought them to justice. Kira, I will hunt you down. I will find you. You will not escape me. I have never failed to solve a case, and you will not be my first failure.”

Teresa’s blood ran cold.

Logically, she knew that there wasn’t anything that anyone could find that linked her to those deaths. Her search history was encrypted, and the murder weapon itself wasn’t something that anyone else knew about. And even if they did, it was a plain black notebook. Everybody owned notebooks, and black was a common colour for them. They’d never be able to prove that she was Kira.

And yet.

Newton Isaacs was convinced that he would be able to find her. Even though the only explanations for all of these heart attacks that made any sort of sense involved some kind of supernatural power, or some kind of Godly intervention, Newton Isaacs was sure that he would be able to track Kira down and put a stop to what they were doing. To what  _ she  _ was doing.

She believed him.

It wasn’t logical, but she believed that he could.

And even if he didn’t, if by some miracle she did become the first case he couldn’t solve, what was to stop somebody else from trying? What was to stop the world from trying to track her down?

The internet was a terrifying place. Even with her data encrypted, people could probably study the patterns in the killings and use that to narrow it down considerably. The collected forces of the internet had once pinpointed the exact location of a flag by the shape of the cloud behind it within 38 hours! She wasn’t safe at all!

She couldn’t let this guy start his investigation in earnest. She couldn’t risk it. He’d find her, she was sure of it, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.

She couldn’t fix the world from a jail cell. 

She took the Death Note out of her bag and opened it to a clean page.

“Oh?” said Janson. “He got you spooked?”

“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath.

“You shouldn’t feel too bad about it,” said Jason. “He’s in your way, right?”

Teresa looked at the screen and did her best to memorise Newton Isaacs’ face. “I guess,” she said, and she wrote his name into the notebook.

It was done.

What followed was the longest forty seconds of her life.

The first time she’d used the notebook, she hadn’t known for sure what was to come. As she’d waited for the forty seconds to pass, she’d been curious, and doubtful, not really expecting it to work.

She knew it worked now.

Newton Isaacs had been dead from the moment she wrote down his name.

He just didn’t know it yet.

It was a shame. He’d done so much good in the world. He’d caught so many criminals, and saved so many lives. His death was a tragedy.

But it was necessary. If he lived, then he would inevitably set the stage for Teresa’s capture, or he would capture her himself.

That could not be allowed to happen.

With any luck, his death would warn people off from trying to hunt her down. Anybody with enough sense to know where to begin in order to find out who she was would see this, and they’d realise that she had the power to kill anyone she wanted. Hopefully, they’d then put their sense to good use, and decide not to fuck with the situation. She’d be left alone, and she’d be able to go on cleaning up the world in peace.

Newton Isaacs’ death wouldn’t be for nothing.

Thirty eight. Thirty nine. Forty.

The man on the screen’s breath caught.

He clutched his chest and groaned.

And, finally, he slumped over the podium.

Newton Isaacs was dead.

The camera lingered on his body.

Nobody came to help.

Had he been doing the broadcast on his own? How long would it take for somebody to go in there and turn the camera off? How long would it take for somebody to fetch his body?

Did he have any family? Did he have anyone who would mourn for him?

Teresa would mourn.

She didn’t know him, but she would never forget him. He deserved at least that much.

The livestream switched away from the body, to a white screen with the letter N in the middle.

A voice started to speak.

It had some kind of robotic sounding effect laid over it. Teresa couldn’t tell if the person speaking was male or female, young or old, or anything that could possibly allow her to identify anything about the person speaking.

“I had to test it just in case, but I didn’t think it would actually happen!”

“Huh?” said Janson. “What’s going on?”

Teresa shushed him.

“Kira,” said the robotic voice, “it seems that you can kill people without being there in person. I was struggling to believe that it could be possible, but we all just saw that it is. Listen to me, Kira. If you did indeed kill Newton Isaacs, the man you just saw die on this livestream, then you should know that he was a death row prisoner whose execution was scheduled for today. That wasn’t me.”

Teresa realised that she was holding her pen way too tightly, and put it down on her desk.

The robotic voice didn’t stop.

“He was arrested in secret, and no details of his case were ever leaked, so you wouldn’t have heard about him on the news or through the internet. It seems that even you don’t know anything about those sorts of criminals.”

Janson started to laugh again.

“Stop it!” said Teresa.

“Come on,” he said. “You’ve got to admit, this is funny.”

“But I assure you,” said the robotic voice, “Newt is real. I  _ do  _ exist. Now, I have a challenge for you. Try to kill me.”

Teresa was very glad that she’d put her pen down already, because she clenched her fist so tightly that if she’d still been holding it, she probably would’ve broken it.

She couldn’t kill him. She didn’t know his face. She didn’t know his name. She didn’t even know what his real voice sounded like.

The Death Note was the most powerful weapon that the world had ever seen, and right now it was completely useless.

“What’s wrong?” said Newt’s robotic voice. “There’s nothing stopping you. Kill me! This is your only chance. Do it now, or I  _ will _ catch you!”

He would. He would catch her. She couldn’t kill him, and he was going to find her.

“Can’t you do it?” Newt laughed. “Well, Kira. It seems you can’t kill me after all. It appears that there are some people that even  _ you  _ can’t kill. You’ve given me a useful hint. Several hints, actually. Would you like to hear what I’ve learnt?

“First, you have proven that you exist. Prior to this broadcast, there was still some doubt as to whether there was a person or group behind the killings. They could still have been written off as an extreme coincidence, or maybe perhaps an act of God. If they were a coincidence then Newton Isaacs would most likely still be alive, and if they were an act of God then surely that God would’ve seen through this performance. No, Kira. You’re human, that’s something we can be sure of.

“The second thing that I’ve learnt is your general location. This was announced as being a worldwide broadcast. That was a lie. The truth is that this broadcast is only being shown on channels and devices inside of England. Many people will also have noticed that any attempt to post screenshots of this broadcast onto sites such as Twitter are failing to post, along with any attempts to discuss it. It’s truly amazing what can be achieved when the world’s nations come together to make a decision. Don’t worry, the posting restrictions will be lifted as soon as this broadcast ends. It wasn’t an attempt at censorship, we just needed to make sure that Kira could only have found out about this directly.

“While it’s still possible that knowledge of this broadcast could still have leaked outside of England through some other medium, the speed at which Newton Isaacs was killed makes this unlikely. I was prepared to repeat this broadcast in other regions until we found you, but there’s no need. I got it right on my first try. I now know where you are. And thank you for that, the reliability of this method would have decreased with every new region we tried, so it was very helpful of you to prove me right so quickly.

“I knew to start here because of your first victim. The police treated it as an unrelated incident, but the truth is that your first victim was the main suspect in a hostage situation not long ago. Out of all the criminals that you’ve killed, his crime was by far the least serious, and the least widely reported. I used this information to deduce that you are in England, and that this first victim was little more than a test of your power. You haven’t been killing for very long, have you?

“Naturally, I’m very interested to learn how you’re able to commit these murders without being in the same room as your victims. But I can wait a little longer to get an answer to that. You can tell me all about it when I catch you. Until next time.”

The voice stopped speaking, and the white screen with an N in the middle cut to black.

The livestream had ended.

Teresa put her phone face down on her desk and put her head in her hands.

“So,” said Janson. “What’s the plan?”

“I fucked up,” said Teresa. “I shouldn’t have killed that man. Now Newt’s gonna find me, and-”

She stopped.

No.

She could learn from this.

Her phone started pinging. It was probably the groupchat. She ignored it.

So long as she kept the Death Note safe, and never let anybody else learn about it or see it, then there was no concrete proof that the killings had anything to do with her. She knew this already.

She killed Newton Isaacs because he’d said that he’d catch her, and she’d panicked. If she’d done nothing, then she would’ve been safe. By reacting, she’d drastically increased the chances that she’d be caught.

But those chances still weren’t high.

And large swathes of people had still been discouraged from attempting any ametuear sleuthing themselves.

Killing Newton Isaacs hadn’t been a brilliant idea, but it also wasn’t a complete fuck up.

She just needed to make sure that she didn’t panic like that again.

  
  


**DON’T DATE YOUR FLATMATES JFC YOU GUYS**

**Minho:** PLEASE TELL ME WE ALL JUST SAW THAT

**Frypan:** You mean the broadcast right? 

**Minho:** YES WHAT ELSE COULD I POSSIBLY MEAN

**Harriet:** Caps

**Minho:** CAPS ARE JUSTIFIED RN

**Thomas:** i told you !! i told you that there was someone behind this !!!

**Frypan:** Excuse you, no you didn’t

**Thomas:** i told my housemates and i told teresa, if i’d seen you in person i’d have told you too

**Frypan:** :(

**Ben:** Did that guy really die?

**Thomas:** i think so

**Ben:** So we all just watched someone die?

**Thomas:** uh yeah i guess we did

**Minho:** does this mean we can all see thestrals now?

**Ben:** Not funny

**Minho:** sorry i’m kinda freaking out atm

**Minho:** Hey all, this is Gally on Minho’s phone. Ben get in here

**Ben:** Omw

**Minho:** this is minho again, gally stole my phone :(((

**Teresa:** idk how i feel about all this

**Frypan:** I hope Newt catches Kira soon

**Frypan:** Kira’s killed hundreds already, maybe more, and they just proved that they’re prepared to kill anyone who disagrees with them

**Frypan:** They’re basically a terrorist

**Teresa:** isn’t kira only targeting criminals though? they could make the world a lot safer

**Frypan:** Being a criminal doesn’t mean you’re not human, you still deserve the same human rights as everyone else. Plus Kira just killed someone who as far as they knew wasn’t a criminal

**Thomas:** @Teresa i see where you’re coming from, but kira just killed someone who they thought was innocent. if making the world safer was their goal then they wouldn’t have done that

**Thomas:** unless they’re an idiot, that would also explain why they killed isaacs

**Teresa:** i don’t think kira’s an idiot

**Minho:** i don’t think that- yes teresa’s right

**Minho:** but i DO think that kira made a bad call

**Ben:** Hey are you guys seriously debating whether or not a serial killer is in the right? Or how strategically sound their actions are?

**Ben:** Because yikes

**Teresa:** i wasn’t saying that kira is a good person! just that it’s not entirely black and white

**Gally:** I abstain from morality discussions, there’s a Reason why I didn’t take philosophy

**Teresa:** you are valid

**Thomas:** you found your own phone then @Gally?

**Gally:** Minho persuaded me not to type on his again

**Minho:** :3

**Frypan:** I think that what Newt did, using a decoy to bait Kira out, was clever, but it makes me really uncomfy. Sure Isaacs was going to die today anyway, but Newt pretty much just used him as a human shield, or like the lab rat in an experiment. How is that okay?

**Ben:** It’s dodgy af, but like you said, Isaacs was dying today either way

**Ben:** A quick heart attack was probably kinder than however he would’ve been executed otherwise

**Ben:** I don’t like it either

**Thomas:** it’s a shitty situation whatever he did i think. somebody had to die to prove that kira really exists. it’s better that it was someone who was dying anyway, and now newt has a solid starting point for his investigation, which means that more lives will be saved overall

**Teresa:** couldn’t what kira’s doing save more lives overall?

**Thomas:** omg teresa stop playing devil’s advocate, murder is wrong and that’s not a debate we’re going to have

**Teresa:** lmao okay i’ll stop

**Harriet:** Uh guys? Sonya’s been yelling at someone on the phone for a while now and I’m getting kinda concerned

**Gally:** @Sonya

**Minho:** @Sonya

**Thomas:** @Sonya

**Harriet:** Yeah that’s not helpful

**Frypan:** Oh that yelling is her? I thought it was the neighbours

**Teresa:** same! they really need to break up already, it’s getting ridiculous

**Frypan:** Next time they wake me up at 2am screaming at each other I’m legit calling the cops

**Teresa:** i’m right there with you

**Thomas:** sonay’s read the messages!!

**Minho:** sonay

**Thomas:** shut it typing is hard

**Thomas:** hey soya what’s your opinion on all this?

**Minho:** siya

**Thomas:** HA you typoed my typo

**Minho:** >:(

**Sonya:** I was yelling at my brother because he’s a dumbass and nearly got himself killed at work today

**Sonya:** Kira can go fuck themself

**Sonya:** There those are my opinions

**Teresa:** shit is your brother okay??

**Sonya:** Yeah he’s okay!! Not for lack of trying on his part, but he’s fine

**Minho:** Have You Or A Loved One Been In An Accident That Wasn’t Your Fault

**Sonya:** Minho trust me if he’d got hurt today it would’ve been very much his own fault

**Sonya:** Also I’m totally changing my name to Soya now lol

**Thomas:** noooo my shame will be forever documented

**Teresa:** what’s one more thing in a long list of them?

**Teresa:** there is already immeasurable proof that you, tom, are a disaster

**Thomas:** you’ve got me there

**Minho:** do you think watching a guy die on live tv counts as extenuating circumstances?

**Harriet:** Seeing as the whole country just did that, probably not

**Frypan:** Why do you need extenuating circumstances already it’s literally the first week of semester??

**Teresa:** @Harriet it wasn’t the whole country, it was just england

**Minho:** @Frypan it never hurts to be prepared

**Harriet:** @Teresa Shhhhh you know what I meant

**Thomas:** minho is just making sure that all options are open to him when he inevitably falls behind, which i think is very responsible of him, even if making sure that he doesn’t fall behind in the first place would be the better option

**Minho:** thomas my boy, you’d better stop calling me out, because i distinctly remember that last year you used all your self certs and submitted everything with less than 10 minutes to spare

**Minho:** even i wasn’t that bad

**Thomas:** et tu brute

**Minho:** don’t dish it out if you can’t take it :>

**Thomas:** i’m gonna get my shit together this year though!

**Minho:** sure you are

**Frypan:** Let’s just hope that these times don’t get any more interesting so we can go through our second year of uni in peace

**Teresa:** ^^ as usual fry is right

**Teresa:** all hail the fry

**Minho:** ALL HAIL


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [black lives still matter](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/)

Brenda stared at the camera.

“Hello everybody, and welcome back to my channel!”

No. She couldn’t start the video like that. It was way too cheery for the subject matter.

“Hey everyone,” she tried again. “This is gonna be a bit of a weird one, I’m afraid, so no pressure to stick around if that’s not your thing.”

Ugh, but that might drive people away from the channel as a whole, which she didn’t want to do.

“Hey everyone.”

She sighed.

Maybe she should just talk? She’d already decided to try doing this without a script. She had a post-it note stuck to the camera on which she’d written some bullet points of things she wanted to mention, but she hadn’t prepared a script or anything like that. She could just get into it, and film the introduction afterwards. The resulting footage would be a pain to sort through while editing later, but that was fine. Editing was a lot easier than talking about personal shit.

“I’m gonna start talking,” she said out loud. “Hopefully I can fix this up into something semi-presentable when I edit this.”

She laughed to herself, and wondered what caption she’d put at that bit of the video. Maybe she’d even insert a clip of herself while editing, lamenting that she’d made this decision in the first place.

“So,” she said. “My parents. I’ve been kinda cagey with the details of everything that happened before now. Mostly for legal reasons. I was told that if I said too much, and it all got too widespread, then it could damage the case and could lead to it getting thrown out. Or I could make jury selection too difficult, if it turned out that the people on jury duty at the time of the trial knew too much already. But none of that matters anymore. I can say whatever I like.

“My parents are dead. They were murdered about half a year ago, and I’m the one who found them. I was living off campus. We lived so close to the uni that it didn’t make financial sense for me to live in halls, we’d have been paying a lot of money for me to live about ten minutes away from home. There was no point. It meant that I didn’t have a built in social circle like most people have with their flatmates, but that was fine. I joined clubs and I talked to coursemates and it was all good. And of course I had all my online friends as well.

“It was a Tuesday night. Well, I suppose it was technically early on Wednesday when I got home. I’d gone to the campus club night with some people I knew from archery club, and I’d stayed until it closed, so I must’ve not got home until about 3am.” She remembered something, and laughed without humour. “At one point in the night I’d felt sick and wanted to go home, but I didnt. I sat down for a few minutes instead and drank water until I felt better, and I ended up staying the rest of the night. Usually, whenever I think about that night, I’m glad that I stayed. If I hadn’t, if I’d gone home when I’d first considered it, then I might be dead too. But sometimes I think that maybe if I’d been home I could’ve called for help. Maybe my parents would still be alive.

“Anyway, there’s nothing like getting home to see that your front door is wide open with its window smashed to sober you up.” She paused. Took a deep breath. “I’ll never forget what I saw inside,” she said. “There was so much blood.”

She sat in silence for a while as she tried in vain to banish the images from her mind.

“It should’ve been an open and shut case,” she said. “The guy that did it was a coworker of my Mum’s. Apparently she turned him down for a date one time, due to her being married with a kid and all, and he never got over it. You know, the typical incel bullshit. He didn’t bother trying to hide the evidence that it was him. If you ask me, I think that he _wanted_ to get caught. He wanted people to know what he did.

“But then he must’ve changed his mind, and he got a _really_ good lawyer. It was late at night, you see, so it was dark, and so the neighbour that saw him leaving might have misidentified him. And he was my Mum’s coworker, so he could’ve visited recently, which would explain why his DNA and fingerprints were everywhere. And just because he had a motive didn’t mean it had to be him, it could’ve just as easily been a robbery gone wrong.

“The chances of him being found not guilty when the trial eventually happened, and the chances of the trial being called off altogether, kept going up.

“And now,” she said, looking into the middle distance just above the camera lens, “one of my worst fears has come true. The trial has been cancelled. But not because the legal system is fucked, although it _is._ No, the trial has been cancelled because the bastard is dead.” She shrugged. “You can’t have a trial with no defendant to sentence at the end of it.”

She focused herself so she was actually looking into the camera lens like she was supposed to be doing. “I don’t think there’s anyone out there who hasn’t heard about it yet, but criminals are dying. Mostly big ones, but some smaller ones. All people who are responsible for the deaths and suffering of others. They’ve been having sudden heart attacks. It all started nearly a week ago. That’s what happened to the man who killed my parents. He had a heart attack, and he died in prison. Apparently it took a few hours for the wardens to realise what had happened, because he was in bed at the time. But he’s dead. He’s gone. He can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Brenda glanced to the side at her desk, and caught sight of a mug of tea that she’d made for herself to drink while filming.

She picked it up.

It was still warm enough to drink.

She took a sip.

“Everybody knows by now that these heart attacks aren’t just heart attacks,” she said. “The stunt that that detective pulled proved that there’s someone behind it. Somebody’s killing criminals on purpose.

“That means that, somewhere out there, somebody with some kind of special power looked at what happened with my parents, and decided that the man who killed them didn’t deserve to live anymore. And then _they_ killed _him_ . They punished him where it looked like the justice system wasn’t going to.” She scoffed. “Even if the justice system _had_ done its fucking job, life inprisonment doesn’t actually mean _life._ He’d have been out in twenty five years. Maybe less if he’d behaved himself. But now that won’t happen. He lost his entire life, because of what he did to my parents. He’ll never be free again, and he’ll never have the chance to do this to somebody else.”

She sipped her tea.

Hmm, the tea was bordering on cold now. She needed to drink it faster, otherwise she’d end up wasting what was left.

She downed the remainder of the tea and put the mug down.

“The detective, I think his name is Newt, said that people have been calling the criminal killer Kira. It’s probably 4chan’s idea of a joke, picking a name that’s a half rhyme of ‘killer’, but it’s accurate so whatever. Whoever’s out there giving criminals heart attacks, they’re a killer alright. But they’ve probably already saved more lives than anyone will ever know.

“So, and this is probably controversial of me to say, but I think Kira’s doing a good thing. The world will be a much safer place for everyone without those sorts of people in it. Maybe I’d feel differently if I wasn’t so close to a murder case myself, I don’t know. But Kira stepped in where the justice system was failing, and for that I’ll never stop thanking them. They’ve given me peace of mind. They’ve made it so I can start to live my life again.

“Basically, what I’m trying to say, is thank you, Kira. I hope you continue to help people in the way you helped me.”

Her cat jumped up onto her lap.

“Hey Bertha,” she said, running her hands through the cat’s fur. “What’s up?”

Bertha meowed loudly, and jumped back to the ground. She walked over to Brenda’s bedroom door and sat in front of it. Then she looked over her shoulder back at Brenda, and meowed again.

“Okay,” said Brenda, “I get it. It’s dinner time for noisy cats.” She stood. “Let’s get you some food.”

She reached for the camera, intending to turn it off.

Only to find that it had run out of battery at some point while she was talking.

She supposed that’s what she got for turning the preview screen away.

She sighed. If she wanted to turn this into an actual video, she’d have to watch through all the footage she had so far and figure out where she’d got up to. She had no idea how long ago it had stopped recording. There was a chance that it had captured barely any of it.

She’d just recounted the worst day of her life, and there was a chance that it had all been for nothing.

She dropped the camera onto her bed and opened her bedroom door. Bertha ran out of the room and down the stairs, as if somehow getting to the kitchen before Brenda would make the food appear faster.

Brenda stepped out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise?

She’d avoided talking in much detail about it on all forms of social media before for the reason she’d just said, but also for her own privacy. It was, after all, the worst day of her life. Her viewers and followers were not entitled to know anything about the worst day of her life.

And the direction that her unplanned spiel had gone in...

She supported Kira. She was aware of the issues that could come with Kira’s existence. If Kira started targeting people who were in some way different, then they could very quickly become the instigator of a mass genocide. That would be awful, and there was no way that Brenda could ever support something like that.

But so far, Kira had only killed people who deserved it. And considering how there was at least one dictator in that lineup, Brenda didn’t think that it was likely that Kira would move on to any kind of ethnic cleansing.

So, unless circumstances changed so that she couldn’t anymore, Brenda supported Kira and their actions.

But she wasn’t an idiot.

If she posted anything online that suggested that she supported Kira, it would definitely start a shitstorm, with her placed firmly at its centre. That wasn’t something she relished the idea of at all.

She reached the kitchen and filled Bertha’s bowl with cat food.

Her camera dying on her was a good thing. She wouldn’t refilm anything that had failed to record, she wouldn’t record any more, and she wouldn’t keep what she had filmed so far.

She could know that she supported Kira.

The internet didn’t need to know a thing.

  
  


“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the coach this empty,” said Thomas.

“It’s the first Friday of the semester,” said Teresa as she sat down in the seat across the aisle from Thomas. “Not a lot of people are gonna be going _back_ to London right now. Plus, it’s the middle of the day. People have class.”

“We don’t have class.”

“I don’t have class,” corrected Teresa. “I happen to know that you _do._ You’re just ditching it.”

Thomas lay his head back against the seat. “Whoever decided to put a lecture at 4pm on a Friday was a dumbass. It basically guarantees that people won’t go. And anyway, if I _was_ going to that lecture, then I’d have to get the evening coach. Do you want me to have to brave the Tube at night? Do you really care for me so little?”

Teresa laughed. “You know I’d be going with you, right? You wouldn’t be alone. And even if you were, you’d be fine, stop being so dramatic.”

Thomas shook his head. “I will never ever stop being dramatic. You’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Teresa rolled her eyes with a smile, and sat back in her seat.

There were one or two other people on the coach, plus the driver, but aside from that they had the place to themselves.

“Hey!” said Janson.

Teresa tried not to show any reaction.

“Hey, Teresa!”

“So,” said Thomas, “that broadcast.”

Teresa groaned. “That’s all anyone’s been talking about all day. Please can we not.”

“Is it really surprising? I mean, I’d never have thought to do something like that, and it totally worked!”

“Literally anything else, Tom. I’m willing to listen to you talk about literally anything else.”

“Awww,” said Janson. “Don’t you want to hear your brother talk about the impact you’re having on the world?”

“Come on, Tee!” said Thomas. “It was a history book moment! Kids in the future are going to learn about Kira, and how Newt caught them, and the way that it started. Isn’t that cool?”

Teresa shrugged. “It doesn’t really affect our day to day lives, though.”

“You wanna know something?” said Janson. “Your brother’s not bad looking. Maybe I should’ve aimed where I dropped my notebook after all. I’m enjoying haunting you, but I think I’d _really_ enjoy haunting him.”

Teresa’s skin crawled, and she wanted to yell at Janson, but she bit back on it. She couldn’t do anything to let Thomas know what was going on, and yelling at something that he didn’t know was there would definitely raise some questions.

“History book moments that don’t actually affect us are the best kind of history book moments,” said Thomas. “Like when people first landed on the moon! That was awesome, and people at the time knew that it was important, but also life went on as normal. Imagine if there was a worldwide pandemic or something? That would be historically significant, but awful to live through.”

“The moon landings didn’t directly kill anyone,” said Teresa.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do,” said Teresa. “And I’d like to stop having this conversation now.” She reached for her bag. “I’m gonna read. You can entertain yourself for a while, right?”

Thomas laughed. “Of course, I’m not five.”

Teresa pretended to be shocked. “You’re _not?_ I thought you were a tiny baby!”

“Sorry to disappoint, but no, we are the same age.”

Teresa shook her head and put an earphone in. She opened her bag and reached inside for her e-reader.

It was right next to the Death Note.

She paused.

She could get some names written during the journey. Thomas was unlikely to ask her what she was doing if he looked over at her. He’d probably assume that it was classwork, or a journal. Nobody else was sitting close enough for her to see.

Her hand ghosted over the notebook.

“Just a heads up,” said Janson, collapsing into the seat beside Teresa, “because I forgot to mention it earlier. Right now, you’re the only one who can see, hear, or feel me, because you’re the owner of my notebook. But anyone else who touches that notebook will also be able to see, hear, and feel me.”

Teresa snapped her head up at him and glared.

She dreaded to think what could’ve happened if she’d been just a little more careless with the notebook. If somebody had touched it, then they’d have known that Janson was there, which could easily have led to them knowing that Teresa was Kira. She might have had to get rid of them somehow.

She gulped.

What if one of her housemates had touched it?

What if Thomas had touched it?

They were headed home right now to celebrate their little brother’s birthday. What if Chuck touched it?

She took her e-reader out of her bag, leaving the Death Note buried at the bottom.

She wouldn’t take the notebook out of her bag unless she was going to use it immediately, and she was sure that nobody was going to see her. She’d figure out a way to store it more safely, so there was no risk of anybody else ever coming across it, when she got back to uni.

She could yell at Janson later.

They got to London just in time for them to be able to then get to Chuck’s highschool as the bell signalling the end of the school day was ringing.

Usually, people who weren’t either students or staff weren’t allowed on the school grounds without signing in. But Thomas and Teresa had both gone to this school. During their time here, they’d been top students, and had been active members of multiple extracurricular clubs. Everybody knew them, and nobody had any problems with them just walking in.

Going back to their highschool over a year after they’d left it was weird.

Teresa kept expecting things to be a lot more different than they were. _She_ was certainly different. But no, the school was the same.

They waited outside the science block, pressed against the wall so that they wouldn’t block the path for the swarm of kids trying to get past. After a few minutes, Chuck emerged.

His face lit up when he saw them.

He said something to the girl he’d been walking with. She nodded, then pressed forwards in the crowd without him.

Chuck came to a stop next to Thomas and Teresa.

“Hey guys!” he said.

Thomas ruffled his hair. “Hey Chuck!”

They all went home first. Chuck went to get out of his school uniform, and Thomas and Teresa went to put their bags in their rooms.

Teresa got her smaller bag out of her backpack, and put the necessities inside of it: her phone, her keys, her wallet, and a lip balm. She considered putting the Death Note in there too, to bring with her, but she decided against it. She wasn’t going to use it, and having it with her would be an unnecessary risk. Her brothers would be a lot more likely to accidentally see it if she had it with her. There wasn’t going to be anybody else home while they were out. As long as they remembered to lock the front door behind them when they left, it would be safe.

Even if their mother got home before they were back, she wouldn’t go snooping through her backpack.

It was fine.

Teresa left her backpack on her bed and went to leave her room.

“So,” said Janson. “What’s happening?”

Teresa stopped, and turned to face him.

“First of all,” she said, “I can’t talk to you when I’m in public or when I’m around other people. People can’t see or hear you, but they _can_ see and hear me, so I need to be careful. Stop trying to get me to respond when I’m not in a position where I can.”

“Fine.”

“Also, why didn’t you mention the thing about other people being able to see you if they touch the notebook sooner?”

Janson shrugged. “It slipped my mind. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.” He grinned. “I guess you’re lucky that nobody else touched it, aren’t you?”

“Teresa!” Thomas yelled from downstairs. “What’s taking so long?”

“Coming!” Teresa yelled back.

She left her room without responding to Janson, and ignored his laughter as she went.

  
  


Newt’s phone chimed.

It was a message from Alby.

**Direct Message:** **👀**

 **👀:** Join video link

👀 **:** They’re about to go over it

 **👀:** You were right

Newt turned to his computer and turned on the video feed to the Kira Taskforce HQ.

The room was full of people. Some were working at their desks, and some were moving around. Some didn’t look like they were working much at all. It was pretty typical for an office.

The camera that Newt was looking through was a laptop webcam, and it was stationed at the front of the room, looking out at them all.

A woman with dark hair - the same woman from the ICPO meeting - stood from her desk and made her way to the front of the room. As people caught sight of her, they fell silent, and the whole room was quiet in just a few minutes.

“Alec, Lana,” she said. “Remind me which job you two were assigned?”

A woman with short, light brown hair stood.

Newt decided that this was probably Lana.

“Newt instructed us to investigate and log when each of Kira’s victims died. The exact time of death wasn’t always possible for us to find, because some of their victims weren’t found for long enough that it became impossible for doctors to say with certainty. But for those that we _were_ able to get, we’ve been able to determine that all of Kira’s victims died roughly in the period between 6pm and 2am GMT.”

It was just as Newt had suspected.

He pressed the spacebar on his computer keyboard, turning his microphone on.

“Thank you,” he said.

Half of the people in the room jumped at the sudden sound of his disguised voice. He noted that the woman who was leading the meeting, the one with the dark hair, was among those who _didn’t_ jump.

“In light of this evidence, we should proceed with the idea that Kira is most likely a student.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then the room erupted with noise.

The woman who was leading the meeting yelled at everybody to quiet down. Newt took the opportunity to look up who she was.

Her name was Mary Cooper. She’d recently been promoted, and was now a leading detective. She’d been cited as one of the country’s best by many people whose opinions were worth a lot.

Newt hoped that she’d live up to her reputation.

If the way she managed her team was anything to go by, she at least had their respect. She managed to get the room quiet again in under a minute. This was a good sign.

She turned to the webcam.

“Explain your reasoning,” she said. “It might seem obvious to you, but it isn’t to any of us.”

“Of course,” he said. “As we’ve seen, Kira has the ability to kill people instantly from a remote location. If they’re killing people instantly, then it follows that they’re only killing people when they have the time to do so. We can tell that they can’t kill people while they’re asleep, or while they are otherwise occupied, because they need to know about someone in order to be able to kill them. You can’t learn about people if you’re unconscious or distracted. The times of death tell us it’s unlikely that Kira has large amounts of free time during the day. Kira’s choice of victim, violent criminals, tells us that Kira is likely to be a young person. The idea that all people who have committed a crime deserve to die for what they’ve done represents a childish view of justice and right and wrong. Even if an adult agreed with it, I doubt that they’d believe in it so strongly that they’d be prepared to kill for it. Also, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that most adults would use the power to kill whoever they want very differently from how Kira is currently using it.

“I’m not saying that Kira is definitely a student beyond any doubt. I’m saying that Kira is _probably_ a student. If the times of death become more sporadic over the weekend, and on any public holidays, that would support this conclusion. If they don’t, then we can reassess.”

Mary nodded, and looked back towards the rest of the room. “That sounds fair enough to me,” she said. “Does anyone have any objections to us proceeding with this in mind for now?”

Nobody said anything.

“Okay,” she said. “And does anyone have anything else they’d like to add?”

A woman with platinum blonde hair who was sitting near the back of the room raised her hand. Mary nodded to her, and the woman stood.

“Since the first rumours of there being someone actively killing criminals started to spread on the internet, there’s been a three percent drop in violent crimes being committed. Current projections indicate that this drop will get bigger the longer that Kira is at large.”

Many people in the room shifted in their seats.

Nobody said anything.

“Thank you Ava,” Mary finally said.

Ava looked relieved and sat back down.

Mary turned towards the webcam. “Is there anything specific you’d like us to work on over the weekend?”

“Yes,” said Newt. “Please find out whether information about Kira’s victims was available inside the UK at the time of their death. Specifically, I want to know whether the victims names and pictures of their faces were available.”

Mary looked confused, but nodded. She turned to face the meeting once more, and pointed to a desk in the front right.

“You four, that’s your job for the weekend. If you’re busy, then switch with somebody else, just make sure that it gets done.”

A chorus of affirmations filtered through Newt’s computer.

That was the end of the meeting, and the end of the work day. As people started to leave, Newt cut the connection between his computer and the one in the meeting room.

He leant back in his chair.

He’d figured that Kira was probably a young person from their choice of victim alone. Hearing that the times of death supported this idea hadn’t been a surprise, but it was nice to have more evidence. It didn’t guarantee anything, not yet. But it meant that he was more likely to be right than wrong.

Now he needed to see whether he was right about Kira’s restrictions on killing.

If he _was,_ then the extreme privacy measures he took, that his sister had always complained about, weren’t so extreme after all.

If he was right, then those privacy measures were the only reason he was still alive.

  
  


Thomas and Teresa let Chuck decide where they went for dinner, and Chuck decided that they were going to Nandos.

“Really?” said Teresa once Chuck told them his decision. “You have the opportunity to get us to take you _anywhere,_ and you’re picking Nandos?”

“No no no no no no,” said Thomas, before Chuck had a chance to respond. “Don’t point that out! Our loan doesn’t come in until Monday!”

“Oh, right.”

Chuck laughed. “I want to go to Nandos because I like Nandos,” he said. “And also because if we go without Mum then she won’t make me have vegetables as one of my sides.”

Teresa folded her arms. “You _should_ have the vegetables though. They’re good for you.”

“There’s salad in the burger,” said Chuck.

“Not much salad,” said Teresa. “And there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a burger in the first place.”

“Tee,” said Thomas, rolling his eyes. “Lighten up a little. It’s his birthday! If he wants to get fries _and_ mash one time, then what’s the harm?”

Teresa smiled, and unfolded her arms. “Technically it’s not his birthday until tomorrow.”

“It’s my birthday weekend!” Chuck declared. “And I say we’re going to Nandos, and I’m having whatever I want!”

The restaurant wasn’t too busy when they got there, so they were given a table straight away. They didn’t take too long to choose what they were going to have. Thomas and Chuck wanted their food mild, and Teresa wanted hers hot. Chuck decided that he _did_ want to have both chips and mashed potato with his food. For a moment Teresa looked like she was about to protest, but Thomas caught her eye and shook his head.

Just because their mother wasn’t there, didn’t mean that Teresa had to take over the job. She didn’t mean anything by it, it was just in her nature to try to take responsibility for those she cared about. Sometimes she needed reminding that she didn’t need to do that.

Teresa wrote down what the boys wanted on the notes app of her phone and went to the front to order.

“So,” said Thomas, once Teresa was out of earshot, “who was the girl you were talking to at school today?”

Chuck groaned and dropped his head onto the table.

Thomas laughed. “Okay, either she _is_ your girlfriend, or she’s _definitely not_ your girlfriend, which doesn’t narrow it down much. All I can tell is that, either way, you have strong feelings about it.”

Chuck sat up. “Her name’s Cheyenne,” he said, “and she’s my _friend._ She’s in year 8! I’m not going to date a year 8!”

“Hmm,” said Thomas. “Remind me what year you’re in again?”

“I just started year 10,” said Chuck.

“Okay, fair,” said Thomas.

“How do you not know that?” asked Chuck. “You _do_ know how old I am, right? My birthday is literally tomorrow.”

“You’re turning fifteen,” said Thomas. “I just forget what school year that put you in. It’s been so long since I’ve had to think about these things.”

“Wow,” said Chuck. “You’ve been at university one year and you’re already forgetting what most of your life up until then was like.”

“I’m telling you man, once you leave school the _whole thing_ feels like it wasn’t real. It’s so weird.”

“I _wish_ school didn’t feel real. School sucks.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Thomas. “It definitely sucks. But it’s going okay?”

“Yeah,” said Chuck. “It’s going okay.”

“How come you’re friends with a year 8?” asked Thomas.

Teresa walked back over to the table and put a receipt and two empty glasses down, keeping one empty glass back for herself. “The drinks machine is over there,” she said, pointing across the restaurant. “You guys can go over when I get back.”

She left again.

“You know how I’m in the woodworking club?” said Chuck.

Thomas nodded.

“Well, she had extra work to do on what her class were making in design and tech at the end of last year, so Mr Ball told her that she should come to the woodworking sessions and work on it then, seeing as then he’d be around to oversee her using the equipment. We started talking, and I helped her out with her project, and she discovered that she actually kinda likes making stuff, so she’s kept coming along. We’re friends now.”

“That’s great!” said Thomas. “Do you talk to her much outside of woodworking club?”

“A little,” said Chuck. “I have chemistry last period on Fridays, and she has science, so we usually run into each other after. We send each other memes sometimes as well.”

Thomas nodded with false solemnity. “The true mark of any friendship,” he said. “Sending each other memes.”

Teresa returned, her glass full with a bright orange liquid. She’d opted for Fanta.

“Your turn,” she said, and she sat down.

Thomas and Chuck grabbed their glasses and went over to the drinks machine. When they got there they watched as a young girl, who looked like she was about six years old, mixed every kind of drink together in one glass. When she was done, and her glass was full to the brim, she carefully carried it away, her eyes glued to it as she went.

“I remember doing that,” said Chuck. “It never tasted very good. She’s gonna be disappointed.”

“Nah, she won’t care that much,” said Thomas. “And even if she does, it doesn’t matter. Kids like to experiment and try new things. They appreciate the simple joys in life.”

Chuck poked Thomas in the side. “Alright old man,” he said. “If you’re done reminiscing about the joys of youth, get out of the way so I can get my Pepsi.”

They got their drinks and went back to their table.

Teresa was staring out of the window, and jumped when Chuck moved his chair back.

“You okay?” asked Thomas.

“Yeah,” said Teresa. “Just zoned out.”

Thomas laughed. “Fair enough,” he said.

“So,” said Teresa. “How have things been?”

“Fine,” said Chuck. “Much the same as they were while you guys were away last year.”

“Did you miss us?” asked Teresa, a small smile on her face.

“Of course I missed you,” said Chuck. “But you’re having fun at uni, right?”

“We are,” said Thomas, while Teresa nodded.

For a moment, Thomas thought that she’d hesitated before nodding, but he wrote it off as his imagination.

“How’s Mum been?” asked Teresa. “How’s her new role treating her?”

“She’s been working really hard,” said Chuck. “But she says it’s paying off! She was chosen to represent the country in an online meeting that was arranged last minute earlier this week, and she’s working late today because she’s been given the lead on a big case. She can’t tell me any details, so I don’t know what case she’s working on, but from what I could gather it was an important one.”

Thomas glanced at Teresa.

Her smile had faded somewhat.

It was obvious to Thomas that their mother was leading the Kira investigation, and he’d bet money that Teresa had come to that same conclusion.

What else could that short-notice online international meeting have been about? How many other big, important cases could there possibly be right now?

Considering that Kira had already proven that they were willing and able to kill the people investigating them, it was a good thing that Chuck didn’t know that their mother was involved. There wasn’t any point making him worry about it.

“That’s cool,” said Teresa. “What have you been making in woodworking club lately?”

Chuck launched into a detailed explanation about the carving he was working on.

It wasn’t too much longer before their food arrived.

  
  


On Saturday, Chuck’s birthday, Chuck went to see a movie with his friends. When he came home in the evening, they ordered pizza and set up Mario Kart for a family game night.

Teresa was the best at Mario Kart, with Chuck following close behind as a close second. Thomas and their mother were both terrible at it. When they all played together, it was invariably the case that Teresa and Chuck would battle it out for first place, while Thomas and their mother did all that they could to try and avoid finishing last. Occasionally, one of them would send off a blue shell, which always greatly screwed over the battle going on at the front, but they were never close enough for it to benefit them in any way.

There was a _lot_ of yelling.

It was a great time.

“I want to have a turn!” said Janson, when Teresa went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Teresa checked around her to make sure that none of her family had followed her in. When she was sure that they hadn’t, she turned to Janson. “No,” she said. “They can’t know you’re here.”

“Why not?”

Teresa closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. She’d thought that Janson was surely smart enough to figure it out himself, but apparently he wasn’t.

Or maybe he was just fucking with her.

“If they find out about you, then it’ll follow pretty quickly that I’m Kira. They can’t be allowed to find that out.”

Janson smiled. “You’re scared they’ll hate you if they find out what you’re doing?”

“Yes,” said Teresa. “But also, the _‘important case’_ that Mum’s been put in charge of? It’s probably the Kira investigation. If she finds out that I’m Kira, then she’ll be obligated to arrest me. If that happens, I won’t be able to keep doing what I’m doing, and my life will basically be over.”

Janson laughed. “You’re telling me that your own mother is leading the people who are looking to catch you?”

Teresa sighed. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“That raises a few questions,” said Janson. “Are you planning on killing your own mother?”

“No!”

She’d said that louder than she intended.

She winced, and looked at the closed kitchen door.

It didn’t open.

“I don’t want to have to do that,” said Teresa, much quieter. “I’m definitely not planning on it. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that the taskforce doesn’t get any closer to me than they already are. That way I won’t have to kill any of them, especially not her.”

“But if they _do_ get close?” Janson’s face was full of delight. “What will you do then?”

Teresa looked away from him, and picked up her water. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just gonna try not to let that happen.”

The kitchen door opened.

“You okay?” asked Thomas. “We heard you yell.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Teresa. “I just nearly dropped a glass.”

Thomas nodded. “Well done for saving it,” he said.

Teresa smiled. “Thanks,” she said.

She followed him back to the lounge, but froze in the doorway.

She’d left her laptop at uni.

She hadn’t noticed so far because she’d been busy with her family, and last night she’d gone to sleep almost as soon as she’d got into bed. But she and Thomas weren’t due to head back to campus until Monday morning, and they didn’t have anything planned for Sunday. Teresa had been considering going over the lecture slides from the last week to make sure that she understood everything. She couldn’t do that without her laptop.

“Hey Mum?” she said as she sat down on the sofa and picked her controller back up.

“Yes dear?”

“Can I borrow your computer tomorrow? I forgot mine, and I want to go over some uni work.”

“Really?” said Thomas. “If you forgot your computer, can’t you just leave it for a day?”

Teresa shrugged. “I’d rather get into a routine as soon as I can.”

“Of course you can,” said their mother. “Just make sure you don’t take it back to uni with you.”

Teresa smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t.”

For the first couple of hours of using her mother’s computer, Teresa did exactly as she’d intended. She went through the slides from her lectures from the past week. She made sure that she understood everything. She looked up anything that she wasn’t sure about. She took some notes.

Eventually, she was done.

She went to close the laptop down, but stopped.

Her mother only had one laptop. She used it for work and for everything else. The files for work were kept on a separate, password protected profile than the profile she used for everything else. But they were on there.

And Teresa was good with computers. She was studying computer science, and she’d chosen it for a reason.

She could get at the files and wipe any trace of her accessing them with ease.

So she did.

She read through everything that the taskforce had gathered on Kira so far.

When she reached the end of it, she shoved the laptop to one side and flopped backwards on her bed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Janson.

“They already suspect that Kira is a student,” said Teresa. “This Newt guy is really fucking good.”

“Oh no,” said Janson, a huge smile on his face. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Teresa thought about it for a minute.

“One of the rules of the notebook is that you can set the details of the death, as well as the exact cause, right?”

“It is,” said Janson.

“Would the exact time that someone dies count as a detail of the death? So if I set a cause of death, I can also add _when_ they’ll die, and it’ll happen at that time?”

Janson hummed in thought.

“I suppose so,” he said. “As far as I know, no shinigami has ever used the notebook that way. We don’t gain anything by delaying deaths, or killing people at specific times, so we’ve never done it. But I don’t see any reason why it _wouldn’t_ work like that.”

“Okay,” said Teresa. She sat up and reached for the computer. She then exited out of her mother’s work files and wiped her tracks. “They’re thinking that Kira is a student because of when people have been dying. From now on I’m going to set the times of death. They’ll think that Kira can’t be a student after all.”

“Clever,” said Janson.

Teresa nodded. “I hope so,” she said. “I really hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, if you're reading and enjoying this fic, then can you please drop a comment? it doesn't have to be long, or even say anything. a bit of punctuation will do! i've just been feeling kinda down lately and would appreciate knowing that there are people here


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to post this at the beginning of the month..... and then i didn't......... and i don't even have an excuse............
> 
> okay, i do _kinda_ have an excuse. i'm supposed to be doing overdue uni work. so i tell myself that i can't do anything else until i've done the work, and then i still don't do the work, so nothing that i want to get done gets done at all, and i end up watching a whole season of hell's kitchen in three days instead
> 
> anyway. chapter. here it is. i hope you enjoy :D

Newt joined the video link to the taskforce HQ at 9am on Monday morning. Less than half of the taskforce members were there at that time, with most of them slowly trickling in over the next half an hour or so.

This wasn’t unexpected. Monday mornings were terrible. Newt remembered back when he still had to go to school despite having proven that it wasn’t challenging enough for him. It had been awful. And these poor people still had to subscribe to the working week.

If they took an extra twenty minutes to get into work than they were strictly supposed to take? Fine. It wasn’t going to make a difference in Kira’s kill count for the day.

One of the last groups of people to walk into the HQ didn’t go to their desks like everyone else had. Instead they walked straight to the front and each handed Mary a plain white envelope.

Mary put the small stack of envelopes down. “What are these?”

“They’re our letters of resignation,” said the man at the front of the group. “In them we state that we want to be assigned to a different case, and that if that isn’t possible then we’ll be leaving the force entirely.”

“What?” said Mary. “What’s brought this on?”

“Newt wanted to know if the names and faces of the victims were publicly available before they died,” said a woman who was standing to the left of the man that had just spoken. “You told us to investigate that over the weekend. Well, he was right! They  _ were  _ available! Just like  _ our  _ names and faces are publicly available! Kira’s already shown that they’re willing to kill anyone standing in their way, and I have a family to take care of.”

“So do I,” said the first man.

The rest of the group nodded along with them.

Mary stared down at the envelopes.

Then she handed them back to the group.

“I’ll reassign you,” she said.

The group murmured their thanks, and filed out of the room.

Mary turned towards the webcam. “It appears that Kira requires the names and faces of their victims in order to be able to kill them,” she said.

“It does,” said Newt. “It would explain why Kira wasn’t able to kill me, and wasn’t able to kill Newton Isaacs until his name and face were made public.”

Mary nodded.

“Please pass on my thanks to the people you’re reassigning,” said Newt. “Their help is appreciated. It’s a shame to see them go, but I understand why they’re doing it.”

“I will.”

  
  


When Teresa and Thomas got back to campus on Monday, Thomas had to run to a lecture.

Teresa did not. She had a lecture later on in the day, but she had a few hours before then.

She didn’t want to waste any more time.

Without even going home first to drop off her things, she got on a bus and went into town.

“Where are we going?” asked Janson.

She glared at him. She’d already told him that she couldn’t respond while they were in public. Why he insisted on continuing to try to have a conversation was a mystery to her.

He pouted. “We just spent two hours on a bus! And now you’ve got on another bus! Yeah I’m gonna moan about it!”

She rolled her eyes and got out her phone. She opened her notes app and typed a response to show him.

_ i need to get some stuff _

When she was done typing, she held her phone loosely in her hand, making sure that her fingers weren’t covering the screen. She looked at Janson, catching his eye, and then looked pointedly back at her phone.

He understood what she was getting at, and leaned over her shoulder to see what she’d written.

“What stuff?” he asked.

_ stuff so I can hide the notebook better _

“You can just carry it around with you, can’t you?” said Janson, leaning back in the seat next to Teresa. “That’s what us shinigami do. Leaving it unattended is asking for trouble.”

_ keeping a murder weapon with me all the time is also asking for trouble _

Janson laughed. “Fair enough.”

Teresa deleted all the text and closed the notes app.

Usually when Teresa went into town, she’d take her time wandering through a few shops. She’d maybe get something to eat. She’d often end up buying at least one new book from either a bookshop or a charity shop.

She didn’t do that this time.

Instead, she went straight into the hardware store.

She bought a small toolkit, some wires, and a small, thin sheet of wood.

She then went to the supermarket on the edge of town and bought a bottle of lighter fluid, and some resealable sandwich bags.

She now had what she needed.

The first thing she did when she got home was check to see if any of her housemates were in. If they were, then she’d have to wait until they were gone to put everything together.

She was in luck. Nobody else was home.

She took the drawer out of her bedside table and tipped its contents out onto her bed. These contents were: some notebooks, some pens, and a set of watercolour pencils that she’d only used once before.

She put the watercolour pencils on her desk. She could do something with them once she’d finished up what she was doing here.

“If I asked you to help me out, would you?” asked Teresa.

Janson shrugged. “Only if I feel like it,” he said. “Which right now I don’t.”

Teresa sighed, but she wasn’t surprised.

She got to work.  
When she was done, she had created the perfect hiding spot for the Death Note.

The drawer in the bedside table now had a false bottom. Underneath that false bottom lay a plastic bag filled with lighter fluid, which was attached to a circuit. The drawer’s false bottom had a nub of plastic - a repurposed pen lid - attached to its underside, which blocked the circuit from connecting while it was in place. If somebody were to force the false bottom open, or were to tip the drawer up so that everything fell out, then the circuit would connect, and everything would go up in flames.

That would cause a lot of problems on its own, but Teresa would much rather get in trouble for going to extreme lengths to hide a diary than let anyone be able to prove that she was a murderer.

In order to open the false bottom safely, all that Teresa needed to do was insert a pen into a small hole that she’d made in the bottom of the drawer. The hole was placed so that the pen would act as an insulator instead, and the circuit would remain unconnected. By doing this, she could retrieve and replace the notebook with no issues.

Janson seemed to actually be impressed when she showed him the finished setup.

“Wow,” he said. “When humans have possessed Death Notes before, finding a good place to hide it has always been one of the biggest problems they face. I haven’t heard of anyone who’s gone  _ this _ far to hide it before.”

Teresa put the notebook on top of the bag of lighter fluid, and put the false bottom in. She put the notebooks and pens that had already been in the drawer on top of this false bottom and slid the drawer shut.

It was perfect.

She checked the time. There was still an hour before she had to leave to go to her lecture.

She might as well crack open that set of watercolour pencils now.

  
  


It didn’t make any sense.

The choice of victims and the times of death for the first week had been so clearly indicative that Kira was a student. The times of death had become more spread out over the weekend, which was what Newt had expected to happen, and had just further confirmed that he was right.

But then Monday had come around.

And the times of death weren’t concentrated to the end of the day anymore.

People were still dying.

They were dying at a rate of one an hour.

Every hour.

Exactly on the hour.

It meant that less people in total were dying. Kira had slowed down.

After a few days of this, the taskforce started saying that this meant that Kira couldn’t possibly be a student. People were dying when students were otherwise occupied.

Could it be that Kira had had a sudden change in routine? Maybe their school was closed? Maybe they’d dropped out? Maybe they were ill?

No, that wasn’t right. Victims were dying every hour, on the hour. It was too precise. Plus, Kira was a human being, who needed to sleep. There was no way that they were manually killing those victims at all those times. It wasn’t possible.

So Kira could control the time that their victims died, right down to the second. That was an interesting development.

Newt sent a memo to the taskforce informing them of such, and that they should keep their focus on the student line of inquiry for now. There was a chance that some of them would realise that Kira could control the time of death on their own, but it was likely that most of them would not, and Newt wouldn’t gain anything by waiting for them to figure it out.

This wasn’t a teaching opportunity. People were dying.

The question now was why Kira had suddenly decided to start setting when criminals would die.

They hadn’t been killing for very long. It was almost certainly the case that they’d only gained this remote murder power recently. It was possible that they hadn’t set the times of death at first simply because they hadn’t been aware that they could.

Maybe that was part of it.

But the idea that that was  _ all  _ there was to it didn’t sit right with Newt.

There was something else.

Something obvious.

Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

His phone chimed.

**Direct Message: ☀️**

**☀️:** [ image ](https://imgur.com/CTzcQVk)

**☀️:** Wanna come yeet denethor down the stairs with me?

🦎 **:** Yes! Always!

**☀️:** Sweeeeeet

He put his phone down.

The quick exchange of messages with his sister made him realise something.

There  _ was  _ another reason why Kira would’ve suddenly changed their killing pattern.

It would be if they knew that the Kira Investigation had used the times of death to deduce that Kira was a student.

Kira had already shown themself to be easily spooked. If they weren’t easily spooked, then they wouldn’t have killed Newton Isaacs. Young people were more likely to be easily spooked than adults, and Newt was saying that as a young person himself. If he was in Kira’s position, he knew that he’d want to destroy any leads that the taskforce had been able to gather.

That’s what Kira was doing now.

And, by doing so, they’d inadvertently narrowed down the search immensely.

It was possible that there’d been a data breach that hadn’t yet been detected, but    
Newt doubted that. Generally speaking, the simplest explanation was the right one, and the simplest explanation was that someone on the taskforce had leaked the information.

Newt didn’t think that any of them would’ve done it maliciously. But anybody could’ve done it carelessly.

Close family members would’ve had access to their devices, and could’ve seen the data for themselves. Or they might have just been talking about their day at work, and accidentally said too much. Whoever the source of the leak was, Newt didn’t plan on holding it against them. It had actually been rather helpful. While before the scope of the investigation was ‘students living in England’, which was a  _ lot  _ of people, now the scope could be narrowed down significantly.

Kira was someone who was close to a member of the taskforce.

Newt had had experience with suggesting that a member of the investigation was a close associate with the perpetrator. People didn’t like it. People tended to become uncooperative.

And there was always a chance that the leak  _ had  _ been done maliciously.

So Newt needed to bring in help from elsewhere.

He looked down at his phone again.

He hated to admit it, but if Sonya wanted to access the data on his computer, it would be simple for her to do. She was smarter than she gave herself credit for, and she was a  _ lot  _ smarter than other people tended to give her credit for. Just as it was possible that a member of the taskforce was the source of the leak, he had to accept that it was possible that  _ he _ was.

Sonya was a student living in England. She was clever. She had a strong sense of justice, and often expressed dissatisfaction with how the justice system handled various cases.

She fit the profile.

He didn’t like it.

Which just reaffirmed the idea that he couldn’t get the taskforce to investigate themselves.

And just as he would be investigating the taskforce members and their families, he would have to investigate his own sister as well.

  
  


**Direct Message:** 🦎

🦎 **:** Hey so if you were Kira you’d tell me right?

Sonya was sitting in the living room with her housemates.

Harriet was reading a book. Teresa had just got home after her last class of the day, and was dumping a bunch of papers out onto the coffee table while complaining about a substitute lecturer who didn’t know how many handouts were too many. Frypan was attempting to deal with the Flood in an old Halo game, but wasn’t having much success, and was dying repeatedly. Sonya was catching bugs in Pocket Camp.  
So she saw the message notification immediately as it covered the top of her screen.

She almost couldn’t believe what she was reading.

She stood.

“All okay?” asked Harriet.

“Yeah,” said Sonya. “My brother’s just being a dumbass again. I’ll be right back.”

Harriet nodded and went back to her book.

“Can you take this upstairs for me?” said Teresa, holding out her bag.

“Sure,” said Sonya, taking it. “Where do you want it?”

“Just dump it outside my room.” She smiled. “Thanks!”

Sonya put Teresa’s bag outside of her bedroom door, and then retreated into her own bedroom, making sure that the door was shut behind her.

She called her brother.

“Hello Sonya.”

“If I were Kira,” she said, without any preamble, “then you would be dead.”

Newt sighed. “Not necessarily.”

“I know your name and face, idiot,” she said. “And you’re going after Kira. Kira already showed that they want to kill you. So you’d be dead.”

“I’d like to think that you’d hesitate before killing your own brother.”

Sonya lay down on her bed. “ _ I _ would,” she said. “I can’t see myself being willing to kill you. But Kira wants you dead, so if I were Kira, you would be.”

“If you were Kira then you may not truly want me dead.”

“Then why would I have bothered killing Newton Isaacs?” Sonya gasped and sat up. “If I were Kira, then Newton Isaacs would still be alive! I knew that that wasn’t you, and I saw through what you were doing! If I were Kira, I wouldn't have killed him, because I knew what you were up to! The fact that he’s dead proves that I can't be Kira.”

“Or it proves that you realised all of this, and so killed him to throw me off your tracks.”

“Newt,” said Sonya. “Do you seriously think that I’m Kira?”

Newt paused. “No,” he said. “I think that if you’d been given a way to kill people like Kira does, then you would’ve told me about it before deciding to use it for any grand schemes. Or at the very least you would’ve been more subtle about using it. You wouldn’t have been noticed.”

“Damn right,” she said.

“How did you know about the name and face restriction?”

“That’s easy,” she said. “All the Kira deaths that have been reported were people whose names and faces were publicly available. Nobody whose face was never shown or whose names were always spelt wrong have been targeted. And it makes sense when you consider the circumstances surrounding Isaacs. His name and face were right there. Neither of yours were, which is why you’re okay now.”

“If you’ve been hacking into the police databases, I need you to tell me.”

“What? Of course I haven’t! I have way better things to do with my time.” She paused. “Why are you asking me that? Is there a leak?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Newt. “That’s why-”

“That’s why you had to ask if I was Kira or not.” Sonya finished for him. “I fit the profile you’ve built?”

“You do.”

“Huh.”

“I shouldn’t be talking to you about any of this.”

“Just in case it  _ is  _ me?”

“Yes,” said Newt. “Just in case.”

“Well,” said Sonya. “It’s not. I promise you that it’s not. Let me know when you’ve been able to officially remove me from the suspect list.”

“I will.”

“I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah,” said Newt, and Sonya could hear the smile in his voice. “I want to hear all about the inevitable guy who won’t shut up in your seminar.”

Sonya laughed. “The one who shall be That Guy has yet to reveal themself, but I’m sure it will happen soon.”

They exchanged goodbyes, and the call ended.

Sonya took a minute to just lie on her bed, letting the contents of the call process.

Wow.

Her? Kira?

As much as she wanted to be all like  _ Newt was losing his touch, the idea that  _ she  _ was Kira was ridiculous,  _ she couldn’t. His logic was sound, and the idea that his sister could possibly be Kira couldn’t have been nice for him. Asking her about it directly went against everything he knew as a detective.

Kira had made a mistake by killing Newton Isaacs, and Newt could’ve just made a huge mistake by confronting Sonya.

It was a good thing she wasn’t Kira.

It would’ve been a disaster if she was.

**Direct Message:** 🦎

**☀️:** Don’t take risks like that again

**☀️:** I know I’m not Kira

**☀️:** But what if I had been?

🦎 **:** You’re my sister

🦎 **:** If you were, I’d give you a chance to stop

🦎 **:** That was your chance

**☀️:** Just be careful okay

**☀️:** If I lose you to Kira then I’ll kill you myself

🦎 **:** Duly noted

  
  


“Hey, Teresa.”

Teresa ignored him.

She’d just been grocery shopping, and was halfway home with a bag in each hand. There weren’t loads and loads of people around, but there were enough that she didn’t want to start apparently talking to herself, and her hands were full so she couldn’t get her phone out.

Janson had been with her for a few weeks, and should’ve known all this by now.

He laughed.

“If the way that these strangers perceive you is really so important to you, then fine, don’t respond to me. Just listen to what I’m saying.”

That was more reasonable. She could do that, no problem.

She hoped that he hadn’t decided to derive some extra entertainment by annoying her. There wouldn’t be much she could do about it if he had, so she hoped that he hadn’t.

“I have to haunt you because the notebook that you own used to belong to me. I’m not here entirely by my own free will. As long as you own the notebook, we’re stuck with each other. But I could kill you and leave at any time. You understand?”

Teresa glanced out of the corner of her eye at him, and nodded.

“I’m not on your side,” he said. “I’m not on Newt’s side either. You’re never going to hear me approve or disapprove of anything you do with the notebook. I’m here for fun and for fun only. So long as I’m entertained, we can keep this arrangement up.”

This was all stuff she already knew. What was his point? Had he decided that she’d got too comfortable with having a literal God of death hanging over her shoulder all the time? Because if so, then he was sorely mistaken. She was  _ not  _ comfortable. Having the threat of her own death if she wasn’t entertaining enough be right there in front of her no matter what she did wasn’t something that she thought that she could  _ ever  _ grow comfortable with. She was, however, getting used to it.

She hadn’t realised before that there was a difference between being used to something and being comfortable with it. She realised it now.

You could learn new things from all kinds of experiences. She’d never have predicted that she’d learn this particular lesson in this particular way.

“So, from this,” said Janson, “it follows that I’m not going to help you either. I’m not going to give you any hints, I’m not going to kill anyone for you, none of it. I’m not on your side, so why would I?”

Teresa rolled her eyes, and nodded.

Janson laughed.

“I’m spelling this all out for you because I’m about to tell you something,” said Janson. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about it. I’m not trying to help you out. It’s just that, as your roommate, certain things about your life affect me too, and this in particular is really starting to bug me.”

Was he about to try to impose roommate rules on her?

Fucking  _ really? _

She’d hear him out, but unless it was something exceptionally reasonable, then she’d remind him that he wasn’t paying her rent, and so he’d just have to deal with her decisions!

Maybe she wouldn’t do that.

He could kill her at any time, after all. Pissing him off may not be the best idea.

“Another human has been following you around everywhere for the past two days.”

Teresa stopped walking.

She tried to look behind her without making it obvious that that’s what she was doing.

A woman who’d been walking closely behind her stepped around her and kept walking.

Teresa couldn’t see anyone following her.

But if she  _ was  _ being followed, then wouldn’t they be trying to hide themself?

She put her shopping bags down on the ground and moved out of the way, so other people would be able to walk past her. She got her phone out and opened a random app, pretending to use it while looking out of the corner of her eye back in the direction she’d come from.

There!

A man, who looked to be in his late 20s or early 30s, stepped out of the shadows. He looked at her for a second, then retreated back out of her sight.

Janson was right.

She was being followed.

She put her phone away, picked up her shopping bags, and walked the rest of the way home.

She said hi to Frypan in the kitchen, put her shopping away, and went up to her room and closed the door behind her.

She looked at Janson.

“You’re sure?” she said. “He’s definitely been following me?”

“Yes,” said Janson. “Today is the third day he’s been trailing you.”

Teresa nodded, and sat on her bed.

She felt sick.

There were two possibilities as to why she would have someone following her.

The first possibility was that the Kira investigation was closing in.

Which shouldn’t be possible! She’d changed the times of death, hadn’t she? So they wouldn’t be looking for students anymore? Right?

Unless...

Unless they’d taken the change in times of death to mean that Kira had some kind of access to police information.

If this was what had happened, then she wouldn’t be the only suspect at this stage. Plenty of police officers and detectives had kids. There was no reason for them to zero in on her specifically. They had to look into all of their leads, and so long as they didn’t have the notebook, there was no way that they could prove that Kira was her.

Though, if she  _ was _ a suspect, then wouldn’t her mother ask her about it? Either directly, or subtly, to try to gauge her opinion on everything?

Teresa and Thomas had helped on a few cases before, so it wouldn’t have aroused any suspicion. Teresa wouldn’t have thought anything of it if their mother had asked what they thought of Kira. But she hadn't done that. Which led Teresa to think that her mother didn’t know that she was being investigated.

Had Newt acted alone?

Of course, it was possible that she was being followed for reasons that had nothing to do with the Kira investigation at all.

She could just be being stalked.

That was a terrifying prospect.

Either way, Teresa knew what her next step needed to be.

She needed to figure out a way to get rid of the man who was following her.

If he was part of the investigation, then he and his peers all needed to go so that she could be absolutely sure that they wouldn’t uncover anything that could be used against her. Yes, they had no evidence without the notebook, but letting them live and continue investigating her so closely was a risk that she wasn’t happy taking.

If he was a stalker, then he had to die so that she would be safe. Someone she’d known in high school had been stalked, and it had just about ruined that poor girl’s life. Teresa wasn’t about to let it happen to herself. She had zero tolerance for stalkers.

She needed to find out his name, and whether or not he was a stalker. Then she could kill him.

Janson sat on the bed next to her.

“Do you want to know the differences between humans and shinigami?”

“You mean besides age and species?”

Janson laughed. “Yes,” he said.

“Will it help me to know?”

Janson shrugged. “It might.”

“Okay,” she said. “What are the differences?”

“The first main difference is why we kill people,” he said, his smile not leaving his face. “When a shinigami kills a human, the rest of that human’s natural lifespan is added to our own. So if that human was fated to die when they were sixty years old, and a shinigami kills them when they’re forty, then the spare twenty years are added to that shinigami’s lifespan. A shinigami can’t be killed by guns, or knives, or even other Death Notes. We only die if we let our lifespans run out. I’ve known some lazy shinigami in my time, but I’ve never known anyone who let that happen.

“A human, however, doesn’t gain anything when they kill someone, no matter what weapon they use. Whether you stab them, shoot them, or write their name into your Death Note, when you kill someone, your lifespan doesn’t change. If you use a Death Note to kill someone before their lifespan was due to run out, then those years are lost to time.”

“Huh,” said Teresa. “That’s actually pretty interesting, but-”

“The second difference,” said Janson, cutting her off, “is that shinigami never have to plan or plot ways to find out a human’s name. We automatically know the names and remaining lifespans of every human we come across. When we look at a human’s face, we can see their names and lifespans floating above their heads.”

Teresa brought a hand up to the space just above her head. “You mean-?”

“I do,” said Janson. “Your name is Teresa Agnes. I knew it from the moment I first saw you. I can also see your lifespan. I won’t be sharing it with you.”

Teresa dropped her arm back into her lap. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t want to know that.”

“I’m bringing all this up because there’s something I can offer you,” said Janson. “There’s a deal that we can make. I can grant you the eyes of a shinigami.”

Teresa’s phone chimed. She ignored it.

“The eyes of a shinigami are undetectable through all possible human technology, so you don’t need to worry about that,” said Janson. “When you have them, then you’ll know the names of any and every other human that you see. The lifespans aren’t written in a way that humans are capable of understanding, but you’ll be able to see those as well.”

“That would solve my stalker problem,” said Teresa. “All I’d need to do is get a clear look at his face, and I’d be done.” She turned around so that she was facing Janson properly and crossed her legs. “What’s the catch?”

Janson laughed. “Clever girl,” he said. “There have been cases before of humans taking this deal without bothering to ask what it costs. They always regret it once they find out what they’ve done to themselves.”

“Tell me what it costs.”

“Oh, not much,” he said. His grin somehow grew even wider than it had just been. “It only costs half of your remaining lifespan.”

Teresa blinked.

“If you were due to die in fifty years,” said Janson, “then the eyes would cost you twenty five. If you were due to die in one year, then it would cost you six months.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay,” said Teresa. “I’m not doing that.”

“You’re not?” said Janson. “Didn’t you just say that it would solve your little problem?”

“It would,” she said. “But it’s not worth half my life.”

“You don’t know how much you’d be giving up.”

“Which makes me even more sure that I don’t want to take the deal.” She shook her head. “If I’m going to fix the world, I need to be alive to do it.”

Janson raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not the only reason,” she said. “But it’s one of the reasons.”

“What are the other reasons?”

That she didn’t want to die? That she didn’t want to bring her eventual death any closer than it already was? That the concept of death when applied to herself was existentially terrifying, and she didn’t want to think about it?

“Nothing you can’t figure out for yourself,” she said.

Janson laughed.

“Is there anything else that you should be telling me?” asked Teresa. “Even if I’m not going to take the eye deal, it would’ve been nice if you’d told me about it earlier. What else about the notebook or shinigami are you allowed to tell me that you haven’t told me yet? Whatever it is, tell me now!”

Janson looked mildly taken aback. “Uh, I think that’s it.”

Teresa nodded. “Good,” she said.

“If you’re not taking the eye deal, then what are you going to do? That guy who’s following you hasn’t shown any sign of going away.”

Teresa slid off her bed and sat in her desk chair. Ideas started to form in her mind. “I’m smart enough to figure something out,” she said.

“You are, are you?”

He didn’t look like he believed her.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

She got the Death Note out of its hiding place.

“I just need to figure out the boundaries of what I can do with this.”

  
  


**Don’t Date Your Flatmates JFC You Guys**

**Frypan:** So I think the house might be haunted

**Minho:** ?????

**Frypan:** The only other explanation is that the girls have been messing with my stuff in the kitchen

**Frypan:** OBVIOUSLY none of them would EVER do that

**Frypan:** (Seriously guys I don’t care which of you is doing it but cut it out)

**Harriet:** It’s not me

**Sonya:** It’s not me either

**Sonya:** 👀

**Gally:** Teresa you’re playing with fire there

**Gally:** Not much can piss Frypan off but messing with his kitchen stuff could do it

**Thomas:** @Teresa get in here and defend yourself

**Thomas:** i know you have enough common sense not to be messing with fry’s shit

**Harriet:** It’s not Sonya or me so that just leaves her

**Thomas:** how are you so sure it’s not sonya?

**Sonya:** Watch it

**Thomas:** you can’t get mad at me for defending my sister!

**Sonya:** I can if she’s guilty!

**Minho:** maybe fry moved his own stuff around and forgot about it?

**Frypan:** Maybe Fry specifically said that he didn’t care who was responsible

**Frypan:** Maybe Fry just requested that whoever it was Ceases At Once

**Teresa:** @Thomas i can fight my own battles, but your support is noted and appreciated

**Teresa:** @Sonya i’m guilty of nothing

**Teresa:** i didn’t touch any of fry’s things

**Frypan:** Again, I don’t give a flying fuck who it was

**Frypan:** Just don’t do it again

**Teresa:** **👍**

  
  


The pattern and rate by which the criminals were being killed had been firmly established.

During the first couple of weeks of the investigation, every new death had been an event, and had been announced to the entire taskforce. That wasn’t happening anymore. Now they were being quietly logged, with an understanding that if anything was unusual about any of them, it would be shared with the rest of the group.

So far, Newt hadn’t been informed that his own investigation into the taskforce members had turned up anything useful. Everyone seemed to be ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. No one was suspicious.

Newt never turned off the video link, so he always had a window into the taskforce HQ. That didn’t mean that he was always paying attention to it. There often wasn’t anything of note going on in there.

So it took a few seconds to register the increased volume level coming from the feed.

He switched back to see that one of the officers, if Newt remembered rightly then the guy’s name was Alec, was standing and reading off a tablet.

“They all died of heart attacks, that much is normal,” he said. “But they’re the first of the suspected Kira victims to behave strangely before they died.”

“What did they do?” someone asked.

“They all did different things,” said Alec. “One escaped his cell, forced his way into the prison guards’ bathroom, and had a heart attack there. One cut himself and drew a pentacle on the wall in his own blood before dying. And one wrote a suicide note of sorts, except obviously she didn’t kill herself, Kira killed her.”

Newt pressed down on his spacebar, turning on his microphone. “Send me pictures of all the scenes. I especially want to see the pentacle drawing by the second victim and the note left by the third victim.”

A few of the people in HQ jumped when Newt started talking.

Alec was not one of them.

He nodded, and tapped a few things on his tablet. “Sending them now.”

“We should also make sure that the media doesn’t report the unusual circumstances surrounding these victims’ deaths. Just let them be reported as heart attacks.”

“What?” said a woman. It took a moment for Newt to remember her name, Ava. She’d spoken in one of the meetings before. “How come?”

“Kira may have been testing something,” said Newt. “We should do everything we can to ensure that they don’t get the results of their test.”

“I hate to break it to you,” said Alec, “but Twitter is way ahead of us. A couple of guards are already talking about what happened.”

Newt sighed. “Never mind, then.”

“We could shut it down?” suggested Ava. “If we told Twitter that it was part of an ongoing investigation, they could remove the posts from search results.”

“It’s too late,” said Alec. “It’s already trending. And shutting it down now will only add credence to what those guards are saying.”

Newt opened Twitter in another window on his computer to see it for himself. “Yes,” he said. “Alec’s right. Whatever Kira was testing, they’ll have got their answer by now. What we  _ can  _ do is, should anyone else be killed similarly, we can make sure that that information  _ doesn’t  _ leak. Understood?”

“Yes,” said Alec. “I’ll go write up a briefing for the prisons.”

  
  


“Alright,” said Teresa. “That’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

“The results of the tests I did with the notebook.”

“What were they?”

She looked over at him. “Are you trying to make conversation, or do you genuinely not know?”

“I genuinely don’t know.”

“How can you not know how it works?” she asked. “It’s  _ your  _ notebook.”

“Yes it is,” he said. “And I’ve been using it for longer than you can even comprehend. But I’ve never felt any desire to experiment or explore its limitations. Why would I when heart attacks work fine?”

Teresa sighed. 

“The rules say that I can set the details of the death. I wanted to find out whether that means I can control people’s actions or not. It turns out that I can, with some restrictions.”

“Control people?” Janson asked, looking confused but slightly hopeful.

Teresa wasn’t sure that she liked that look on his face, but carried on regardless.

“Yeah,” she said. She got all the details up on her computer, and grabbed the notebook and opened it to the corresponding pages. She beckoned Janson closer so that he could see. “This guy did the drawing in his own blood like I wrote that he would. This one wrote a letter before dying, and the letter is exactly what I wrote in the notebook that she would write. This one died in the guards’ bathroom, like I said that they would. I was able to use the notebook to effectively mind control these people. That means that I can technically use it to make people do whatever I want, with the caveat that the person I’m controlling will die when I’m done with them.”

“So what are the limitations?”

Teresa smiled. “The limitations are that even the Death Note can’t achieve the impossible. You see this guy?” She pointed to an entry in the notebook. “I wrote that he would die by falling off the top of the Eiffel Tower thirty minutes after I wrote his name. The dude was in a maximum security prison in Texas. It’s not possible to get from America to France in half an hour, even without factoring in the necessary jailbreak. The Death Note couldn’t fulfil the instructions.”

“So the guy didn’t die?”

“No, he died,” said Teresa. “He just died of a heart attack in his cell once the six minutes and forty seconds you get to write the details of the death were up.”

“Oh,” said Janson. “Yeah, that would make more sense. Once someone’s name is written in a Death Note, there’s no undoing the fact that they’re going to die.”

Teresa turned the page and pointed to another couple of entries. “I wrote that this guy would write on his cell wall that he knew that Newt suspects the families of the taskforce, and I wrote that this guy would write Newt’s real name on his cell wall. Neither of them did it. I was kinda expecting these ones to work, but them not working tells me that the notebook can’t make people do anything that they wouldn’t have the ability to decide to do for themselves. These two didn’t know anything about Newt, so writing these things about Newt wouldn’t have been an option for them to do on their own, so the notebook couldn’t make them do it either.”

Janson nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “Probably annoying for you, though.”

Teresa shrugged. “Not really? If I want to learn about history, then it doesn’t matter how thoroughly and carefully I read an academic paper about fish, it doesn’t contain the information I need and it won’t be able to help me. The same logic applies here.”

“Fish?”

Teresa smiled. “It’s just the first word my brain grabbed out of the air. There’s no deeper meaning to it. You get my point.”

“Yes,” said Janson. “Was there anything else?”

“There are two more things,” said Teresa. “The notebook can’t be used to make anyone murder anyone else. I wrote that this person would strangle the closest person to her to death, before banging her own head against the wall until she died too.” She grimaced. “I’m glad this one didn’t work, it was brutal. She just had a heart attack once the detail altering time was up.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Janson. “I think I’ve seen other shinigami run into that one before. The deaths caused by Death Notes can affect the lifespans of other humans, either extending or shortening them, but if the method death would lead directly to the death of another human whose name isn’t written, then it defaults to a heart attack instead.”

Teresa rolled her eyes. “Are you going to keep remembering things that you’re supposed to have told me already? Even though I’ve already asked you to tell me everything?”

“How am I supposed to know? If I’m going to remember something later, then that means I’ve forgotten it now. Do  _ you  _ know what  _ you’ve  _ forgotten?”

“I’d expect a shinigami to have a better memory than a human.”

“We do,” said Janson, smiling smugly. “We’ve also been around for longer than there’s been an Earth. Things are bound to get lost.”

She didn’t really have a response to that.

“What was the last thing you found out?” asked Janson.

“It’s a pretty simple one actually,” said Teresa. “Generally, you write the name, then the cause of death, and then you have six minutes and forty seconds to write the details. But if you write the cause of death and all the details first, taking as long as you like, and then add the person’s name in front of it after when you’re done, then it will still happen.” She turned in her seat and looked up at him. “I’m probably going to do it that way from now on whenever I need to add details. Six minutes is ages, and I didn’t run out of time once while I was testing all this, but it’s still nice not to have a time limit.”

“That sounds cool,” said Janson. “I might use that one in future.”

“That would require you killing people in ways that are more inventive than just a simple heart attack. There’s no point otherwise.”

Janson laughed. “True,” he said, “and I do tend to stick to the basics. But never say never!”

Teresa smiled. “Never say never indeed.”

It occurred to her that she was smiling along with a discussion about killing people. She looked away from Janson and turned back to her computer screen.

“I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be happy that some people like to share their whole lives on Twitter, but here we are. I doubt Newt wanted any of this to get reported.”

“Probably not,” agreed Janson. “So,” he said. “What next?”

“Next is that I’m going to keep making criminals act strangely before they die for a while,” she said. “That way it should hide the fact that I’ve already got my answers, and should also hide that the way I get my stalker’s name has anything to do with Kira.”

“And what are you going to do to get your stalkers name?”

Teresa closed the Twitter tab. “You want to be entertained, right?” she said. “It’ll be a lot more fun for you if I don’t explain it to you beforehand. I’m happy to talk you through it, but-”

“No, that’s okay,” said Janson. “You’re right. I think I’d rather wait and see.”

Teresa nodded. “Good.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are reasons why i haven't updated this as frequently as i usually do, but they can all be boiled down to 'life happened' and 'motivation was low', which sucks but that's just how it is sometimes
> 
> a lot happens in this chapter though! which should hopefully make up for it :D
> 
> also, i've removed some of the tags bc they were kinda unnecessary, and i've moved the epigraph from the fic summary to the start of the first chapter. the epigraph is important to me and applies more to this fic overall than i think most people realise, so putting it within the fic itself should hopefully mean that people actually spot it

**DON’T DATE YOUR FLATMATE JFC YOU GUYS**

**Teresa:** guys we haven’t had a gay dessert session AT ALL this semester

**Minho:** omg you’re right we haven’t

**Teresa:** we must rectify this immediately

**Minho:** yes we must

**Teresa:** who else wants to join in a gay dessert sesh??

**Teresa:** or is it just gonna be minho and me

**Thomas:** if you think you’re getting dessert without me then you are Wrong

**Harriet:** When were you thinking of doing this?

**Teresa:** this weekend????

**Harriet:** Oh, I’m going home this weekend, I won’t be able to come

**Thomas:** we can wait until we’re all free!

**Harriet:** Or we can just get dessert as a group more?

**Harriet:** It’s fine lol, don’t let me not being there stop you from enjoying yourselves!

**Teresa:** sonya?

**Sonya:** Funny story

**Sonya:** I’m kinda going /with/ Harri this weekend

**Teresa:** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Thomas:** aaaaaaa good luck have fun !!!!!!!

**Thomas:** if her parents don’t like you then eat them

**Minho:** ^^^ what thomas said

**Harriet:** Please don’t eat my parents

**Thomas:** then they’d better like sonya then :3

**Sonya:** I’m not into cannibalism! My plan for if they don’t like me is: cry

**Harriet:** Babe they’re going to adore you, you have nothing to worry about

**Ben:** Gally says yes to dessert and would prefer Saturday over Sunday

**Minho:** oh yeah

**Minho:** the three of us are going out saturday night

**Minho:** so sunday is out

**Thomas:** date weekend! everyone have so much fun with your partners!

**Teresa:** saturday it is !!

**Teresa:** going to dessert is me, tom, and the trio

**Teresa:** not sonyarriet as sonya is meeting the parents (very exciting !!!)

**Teresa:** @Frypan ?

**Thomas:** fry we can see you lurking

**Thomas:** are you getting dessert with us or not?

**Frypan:** I already promised my friends in baking soc that I’d go to their event on Saturday

**Frypan:** I’m 100% there next time though!

**Teresa:** we’ll miss you :(

**Teresa:** but have fun !!!

**Teresa:** pls bring back some of what you make

**Frypan:** Haha when don’t I?

**Teresa:** true true

  
  


Thomas and his housemates met Teresa in the Hive on Saturday, and the five of them got on the bus to head into town.

“What are you all thinking of getting?” asked Gally. “I’m thinking of getting a sundae.”

“A sundae sounds good!” agreed Thomas. “But their crepes and waffles are also great.”

“So, basically you’re saying that you’re considering getting anything on their menu?” said Ben.

“Shush.”

Ben laughed. “Are we going to end up waiting an hour for you to make a decision again?”

“One time!” said Thomas. “That happened one time! Can’t we let it go already? And it wasn’t an  _ hour, _ you’re exaggerating.”

“He isn’t,” said Teresa. “It was an hour.”

“Wow,” said Thomas. “And here I foolishly thought that my sibling would have my back.”

Teresa shrugged. “You were rivalling Chidi Anagonye in indecisiveness. If I support you in pretending that it didn’t happen then I run the risk of letting it happen again.”

“You’re mean to me.”

Teresa grinned. “That’s my job.”

“I’m gonna get a waffle,” said Minho.

“Which topping?” asked Ben.  
Minho leant back in his seat. “They do this one where they cover it in chocolate sauce, mini marshmallows, and sprinkles. I think I’m gonna get that.”

“Ooooh,” said Thomas. “I might get that too!”

“Quick, Ben,” said Gally. “Talk about which crepe you’re getting, so we can hear Thomas say he’s gonna get  _ that  _ instead.”

Thomas pouted while everyone else laughed.

The bus arrived in town, they walked to the dessert cafe, and they quickly found a table that would fit all five of them. Minho, Gally, and Ben went up to the counter to order their food, leaving Thomas and Teresa at the table.

Thomas flipped through the menu.

“What are you getting?” he asked Teresa.

“Chocolate chip cookie dough.”

Thomas turned from the page detailing the waffle options to the page detailing the crepe options. They were practically identical. The only difference was what the topping would be placed on, a waffle or a crepe.

Both were good.

The sundaes were also good.

“You know what,” he said. “I’m going to get the cookie dough too.”

Teresa smiled. “I applaud your decision making skills.”

Thomas groaned and leant forwards so his forehead was resting on the table. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

“If it helps, you’re only like this with decisions that don’t matter. When it comes to important stuff you’re always a lot surer in what you want and what you’re doing.”

Thomas sat up. “Huh,” he said. “You’re right. That does help, weirdly.”

Teresa nodded. “Good.”

Minho and Gally got back to the table, holding a bit of laminated card with the number 29 written on it.

“You two can go up now,” said Minho.

They did, passing Ben on their way to join the queue at the counter.

There were only three people ahead of them, so Thomas didn’t think that it would be long before it was their turn. And this place was usually quick when it came to making the food, so it wouldn’t be much longer after that before they got their orders.

There was a decent chance that he’d change his mind about his order before reaching the front of the queue, but at this moment in time he was excited for his cookie dough.

“Hey Tom,” said Teresa in a quiet voice.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t turn around, but do you see that guy behind you?”

“How am I supposed to see the guy if I don’t turn around?”

She gave a small sigh. “Fine, just don’t make it obvious.”

Thomas carefully turned himself around halfway so he could get a quick glance at the man standing behind him in the queue.

He was in his late 20s or early 30s. His hair was dark, almost black, and he was a good few inches taller than Thomas.

He turned back to Teresa. “What about him?”

“Nothing really,” she said. “I’ve just seen him a few times over the last few days. It’s weird.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “No I get what you mean. You see the same person a lot in a short space of time and it’s like the Matrix is glitching on you.”

Teresa smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”

“I hate it when that happens,” said Thomas. “The nameless extras in our lives need to learn their place and stop trying to rise above their stations.”

Teresa laughed softly. “We go to a campus uni,” she said. “The cast doesn’t change frequently enough that you’ll never recognise anyone you walk past.”

“I’m trying to agree with you here!”

“I never said that I was unhappy with seeing the same guy around,” she said, shaking her head. “But yeah, I would kinda like the Matrix to give it a rest with this guy already.”

“Maybe you’re fated to meet, and your destinies are inextricably tied together, and that’s why you’ve started seeing him everywhere?”

Teresa pulled a face. “God I hope not.”

Thomas laughed. “Yeah that probably wouldn’t be ideal.”

“Probably?”

“EVERYBODY FREEZE!”

Thomas and Teresa spun to see what was going on, to see who’d just yelled.

There was a man standing in front of the counter.

He hadn’t been there when they’d joined the queue.

He was holding a gun.

He was pointing it at the girl who’d been serving people.

“This is a robbery!” said the man. He spun around at the rest of the shop, pointing the gun at a few random people. “Anybody who tries to call for help gets shot, so don’t try it!”

He turned back to the girl at the counter. She looked terrified.

Thomas didn’t blame her.

How the fuck did that man have a gun? What sequence of events could possibly have led to this situation unfolding?

Teresa slowly snaked her arms around Thomas’ left arm and gripped him tight.

Thomas didn’t take his eyes off the robber.

There was something about him...

“He’s shaking,” Thomas said quietly, “and he’s not looking this way. If we rushed him, we could probably take him down before anyone gets hurt.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” said the man standing behind them in line, the one that Teresa had just said she’d been seeing everywhere.

He was American, and if Thomas had been loud enough for this man to hear him, then he’d been Too Loud. He was lucky that the robber had been too busy yelling at the girl at the counter, or that could’ve been  _ it _ for him.

“Do you have any better suggestions?” said Thomas.

“Yes,” said the man. “We do as he said and stay still. Either he’ll get away or he won’t, but we won’t get hurt.”

“I don’t trust that guy not to shoot anybody,” said Thomas. “Just because he  _ said _ that he won’t, doesn’t mean he  _ actually  _ won’t.”

Of all the places he could’ve chosen to rob, why choose a cafe? Why pick one in the middle of the city centre? It didn’t make any sense.

“Attempting to disarm him yourself won’t help,” said the man. “All you’d be doing is taking the chance that someone will get hurt and making it a certainty.”

“Who exactly are you?” asked Teresa, cutting off Thomas’ retort. “How do we know you’re not working with him?”

“What?”

“Our Mum’s a detective,” she said, “and she’s told us before about how it’s not unheard of for the robber to have an accomplice. The accomplice pretends to be a normal person who’s been caught up in it like everyone else, but if the hostages start any trouble then the accomplice subdues them. You’ve got to admit that that’s what you sound like right now.”

“Teresa-” started Thomas.

“Didn’t Mum tell us about that?”

“Well yeah, she did, but I don’t-”

“I’m not his accomplice,” said the man.

“Prove it.”

The man froze.

“Come on Teresa,” Thomas hissed. “How is he supposed to-”

“Okay,” said that man.

Thomas fell silent.

The man shot a nervous look towards the robber.

Thomas looked over as well. The robber was yelling at a woman whose toddler had started to cry. He wasn’t looking over at them.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black wallet. He opened it and showed Thomas and Teresa its contents.

It wasn’t a wallet at all.

It was an FBI ID badge.

“Oh,” said Teresa.

“Why is the FBI here?” asked Thomas.

The man shook his head, and put his ID away. “That’s not important right now.” He looked at Teresa. “Satisfied?” he asked.  
Teresa hesitated, but nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll trust you for now.”

She loosened her grip on Thomas’ arm, before letting him go entirely.

“Shut that kid up already!” yelled the robber.

“I’m sorry!” said the toddler’s mother. “He’s scared, I don’t know how to-”

“Just do it!”

“It’s not her fault!” said a teenage boy who was sitting further towards the back of the shop. “You’re the one-”

The robber pointed his gun at the teenage boy, and his friends practically jumped on him to get him to shut up.

That was one brave kid.

Thomas hoped that his bravery would serve him well some day.

Then Thomas noticed Teresa bending down.

“Don’t,” he said. “Whatever you dropped, leave it.”

Unfortunately, this got the robber’s attention as well.

He stormed up to them. He grabbed Teresa’s wrist, pulled her upright, and pointed the gun at her head. He grabbed the thing that she’d been reaching for - a bit of paper - himself.

“If you were planning something over here, you’re gonna regret it!” he snarled.

Teresa shook her head frantically as he unfolded the paper.

He laughed. “You’re lucky this is just a shopping list,” he said. He scrunched up the paper and threw it into Teresa’s face, and shoved her away into the FBI agent.

“Are you okay?” asked the agent.

Teresa nodded. “Yeah,” she said, as she shoved the paper back into her pocket.

The robber returned to the counter. “You got that money yet or what?” He trained the gun back on the girl. “Don’t make me use this.”

The girl was close to tears. “I’m trying my best,” she said. “But our manager just stepped out, and he’s the only one who knows the code to-”

“You think I give a fuck? Just get the damn thing open!”

“I’m trying!”

The man shot the glass of the ice cream display case, shattering it.

People screamed.

Everyone ducked.

Thomas’ ears rang.

He grabbed Teresa’s wrist and pulled her away from the broken glass.

They, the FBI agent, and the people who’d been ahead of them in the queue formed a small protective huddle.

Thomas heard a siren in the distance.

Help was coming.

Thomas just hoped that it would get here before anybody got hurt.

The robber seemed to hear the siren too. “Hurry the fuck up!” he yelled.

Then he glanced to one side, and froze.

“Hey, you,” he said.

He turned around.

“You, there,” he said. “The creepy one with the weird smile.”

He was looking at the wall.

There wasn’t anybody there.

“What’s he doing?” asked Thomas.

“I don’t know,” said the FBI agent.

The man raised his gun and trained it on the wall.

“Of course I can see you! What the hell are you talking about?” He paused. Then, he yelled, “Bullshit!” and fired into the wall.  
“Everybody get down!” yelled the FBI agent.

People did as they were told.

The robber kept firing into the wall.

Thomas didn’t count them, but the bullets ran out fast. The period during which the robber had actively been shooting felt like forever while it was happening, but the moment the shooting stopped it felt like it hadn’t taken any time at all.

The robber dropped his gun and ran out of the shop and into the street. He didn’t stop to check if the coast was clear. He just ran out.

Thomas heard a screech.

Then a thud.

Everyone inside the cafe exchanged panicked looks with each other, not knowing what the hell had just happened.

Were they still in danger? Was help nearly here?

Was the robber okay?

Thomas was the first one to move.

He pushed his way out of the huddle, ignoring Teresa’s protests, and ran to the door.

The police weren’t here yet, but that didn’t matter.

The robber was unconscious.

Possibly dead.

The driver of the car that had hit the robber was beside themself, crying into their phone and frantically begging for an ambulance to get here as fast as it could.

Thomas stepped back inside the cafe.

“It’s okay,” he said. The words felt like ash in his mouth. “He got hit by a car. We’re okay.”

The group of teenage boys rushed past him and through the door. Thomas turned, expecting to have to tell them not to go anywhere so that they could give statements when the police arrived, but they were just getting a better look at the accident. Another look at their table showed that they’d left their jackets there. They weren’t going far.

Teresa had rejoined their friends at their table, and the FBI agent had followed her there. Thomas walked over to them.

“I guess we’re not getting our food then, huh,” said Minho.

“Is that really your priority right now?” said Teresa.

“I genuinely have no idea how else to react to this,” Minho replied. “At least the money I paid for a dessert that I won’t be getting is a quantifiable loss.”

Ben nudged him in the side. “Breaking out the big words, are we?”

“I’m stressed!”

“Look,” said the FBI agent in a quiet voice. “I have to go. I can’t be here when the police arrive.”

Teresa nodded. “We won’t tell anyone.”

The FBI agent smiled in thanks, and left.

“Who was he?” asked Gally.

“Just some guy,” said Teresa.

“And he can’t be here when the police get here because?”

“He’s an FBI agent,” said Thomas. He sat in the empty seat next to Gally. “My guess is that the local police don’t know that there’s an FBI agent in the area.”

Minho’s eyes widened. “What, is he a spy? Did we just meet a spy?”

“Some spy  _ he _ is,” said Teresa, “carrying his ID around with him and showing it off at the slightest bit of prodding.” She sat down. “When we talk about this, we don’t tell anyone that we met an FBI agent, okay?”

“But what if-?”

“Minho,” said Teresa. “Do you really want to be the leak that causes an international incident? Because I don’t.”

“Oh,” said Minho, somewhat chastised. “Yeah I don’t want to do that either.”

“That includes Mum,” said Teresa, looking at Thomas.

“I know,” said Thomas.

A uniformed police officer walked into the cafe.

“Is everyone okay in here?” she asked.

Everybody turned to look at her.

After a few seconds of silence, Thomas spoke up.

“I don’t think anyone’s hurt,” he said.

The officer nodded. “I’m going to need you all to hang around for a bit. We’ll come and talk to each of you, and then you can go, okay?”

The people in the cafe murmured their assent.

The officer turned and went back outside.

  
  


**Don’t Date Your Flatmates JFC You Guys**

**Ben:** Guess who just got ‘give a statement in a police investigation’ checked off their bucket list?

**Gally:** Why was that even on your bucket list?

**Ben:** Sometimes you just wanna live dangerously, you know?

**Ben:** But also that was not fun at all 0/10 would not recommend

**Harriet:** What are you talking about?

**Harriet:** What happened?

**Teresa:** someone tried to rob the cafe we were at

**Teresa:** he ended up emptying his gun into a wall before running out and getting hit by a car

**Teresa:** pretty sure he died

**Teresa:** the police obvs wanted to talk to everyone who was there

**Harriet:** Holy shit! Are you guys okay?

**Teresa:** we’re shaken up but fine

**Thomas:** teresa got the gun pointed right at her so no she’s not fine at all

**Thomas:** why were you even bending down?

**Teresa:** i wasn’t thinking! i’d tried to get my phone out to call 999 but i dropped the old shopping list and my idiot brain decided i needed to get it back

**Teresa:** it’s a good thing i shoved my phone back into my pocket when the paper emerged or he really might have shot me

**Teresa:** jfc that’s a horrible thought

**Teresa:** i was this close

**Teresa:** yeah maybe i’m not okay after all

**Teresa:** physically i’m fine, my wrist’s a little bruised where he grabbed it but like i’m alive so

**Harriet:** All of you need to contact student support asap

**Harriet:** You can’t be expected to just deal with it on your own

**Thomas:** already done, we’re getting fast tracked

**Thomas:** we should be getting our counselling session appointments in the next week

**Minho:** extenuating circumstances babey

**Harriet:** Stay safe. Maybe don’t be alone tonight

**Teresa:** roger

  
  


Teresa tried to go home, but Thomas insisted that she stay with him overnight.

Gally, Ben, and Minho decided to have their date night as planned, so Thomas and Teresa were left with the house to themselves.

They talked about what happened until they decided that they didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Then they changed into the cosiest sets of pyjamas that Thomas owned, curled up together in the living room, and put on an old season of Hell’s Kitchen.

There was something about watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people that made everything feel better.

“Aren’t these people supposed to be professionals?” asked Thomas, after the third attempt to serve raw meat ended with that particular contestant getting kicked out of the kitchen.

“Yep,” said Teresa.

“I could at least make sure that what I’m serving isn’t raw, and my cooking skills are only good enough that I’m not living solely off of takeout and frozen food.”

“That hasn’t always been true,” said Teresa.

Thomss grinned. “Remember when I burnt spaghetti that one time?”

Teresa laughed. “You were thirteen, shit happens.”

“My age was no excuse for that disaster. How do you even burn spaghetti? I couldn’t recreate it now if I tried!”

“But you were a kid, with almost no cooking experience. The people on this show are all actual chefs, who are supposed to know what they’re doing. And yet if one of them managed to burn spaghetti it wouldn’t surprise me at this point.”

“Hey, Teresa!” said Janson, drowning out Thomas’ agreement.

Teresa hadn’t been alone for long enough for Janson to have a conversation with her all day. He’d spent the last few hours doing his own thing. He’d probably realised that he wouldn’t get a response from her as long as she was around other people, and had been waiting for her to be alone.

Unfortunately, his patience looked to have run out. He was standing in front of the TV and glaring at her.

Not that he had much patience to begin with. Teresa was surprised that he’d left her alone as long as he had.

“I need the loo,” she said, and she extracted herself from the mound of blankets that she and Thomas were huddled under.

“Do you want me to pause it?” asked Thomas.

She shook her head. “Only if it looks like I’m gonna miss the elimination, but I shouldn’t be gone that long.”

She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

“Okay,” she said. “Out with it.”

“That guy at the cafe wasn’t due to die today. You wrote his name in the Death Note.”

“He attacked two people last night, so I would’ve got him sooner or later. This way his death was useful.”

“I didn’t think you even had the notebook with you.”

“I didn’t. I wrote his name and the circumstances this morning before I left the house.”

Janson raised an eyebrow. “Interesting! You do realise that it could’ve gone wrong. What if somebody innocent had got hurt?”

Teresa shook her head. “There was never a chance of that. People under the control of the notebook can’t be controlled to kill somebody else. And, just to be sure, I specified where he would shoot all the bullets, so the gun wouldn’t be able to go off accidentally. Sorry about making him shoot at you, by the way. I knew it wouldn’t hurt you, and him freaking out like that would make all the witnesses less likely to question why he’d suddenly run outside.”

“Yes,” said Janson. “It  _ was  _ clever to drop a bit of the Death Note and make him touch it so he could see me. But don’t do that again. Just because getting shot doesn’t hurt me, doesn’t mean that I enjoy it or want to repeat the experience.”

Teresa nodded. “Okay.”

“Did you get your stalker’s name? I’m assuming that was the point of all this, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention.”

“I did,” said Teresa. “His name is Mark Murphy, and he’s an FBI agent.” She leaned back against the sink. “An FBI agent has been following me around. It’s safe to assume that this is Newt, and I’m not the only one being followed. Newt would have FBI agents following everyone who information could’ve been leaked to. That makes covering my tracks a little easier.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “For a couple of weeks, at least. I need to give Mark the chance to move on to other people, to make it less obvious that him and the rest of the agents dying is connected to me. Then I’ll get rid of them all at once.”

“Won’t that tell Newt that Kira is definitely among the people being investigated?”

Teresa shrugged. “Maybe, but that isn’t anything he doesn’t already know. What this will  _ also _ do is cause problems for the investigation. I doubt that any of them will be happy to learn that they and their families are suspects, and they’ll be even more upset to learn that Newt was secretly using a foreign force to investigate them. Even if Newt knows exactly who Kira is, it won’t be worth much if nobody’s willing to listen to him. And if he’s forced to move on his own, he might risk exposing his own identity. Whatever happens, it’s a win for me.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this all figured out.”

Teresa hit the flush on the toilet, signalling the end of the conversation.

“Yeah,” she said. “I just hope I haven’t missed anything.”

  
  


A cursory search through publicly viewable social media profiles told Teresa that Mark Murphy was twenty eight years old, was from New York, and had a fiancée back home. Her name was Trina.

Teresa allowed herself a moment where she mourned for the life and love that Trina was going to lose. But only a moment. In the short run, people like Trina would get hurt, but the Kira investigation couldn’t be allowed to exist unopposed. The world would be better off for Kira’s existence.

Mark and Trina were good people, and people like them didn’t deserve to die, or to have their loved ones killed. But so many people were dying or losing their loved ones due to violent crime every day.

Kira would put a stop to it for good.

Sacrifices had to be made along the way.

  
  


Halloween came.

The three people in their friendship group who’d actually managed to buy tickets for the Halloween club night before they sold out (Frypan, Harriet, and Ben) sold them for a small profit, and the group piled into the girls+Frypan’s living room to watch movies of debatable and varying levels of spookiness and scariness all night.

The Nightmare Before Christmas was spooky, not scary. IT Chapter One was scary, not spooky. Coraline was fiercely debated, with some (Ben, Sonya, Harriet, and Teresa) saying it wasn’t scary at all, and some (Gally, Minho, Thomas, and Frypan) saying that it was the most terrifying thing they’d ever seen. Spirited Away was neither spooky nor scary, but was a great time.

It was a good night!

The next morning, Sonya was the first to wake up.

Quietly, so as to not accidentally wake anyone else up, she crept across the room and retrieved her phone from where she’d plugged it in to charge at around midnight. She nearly tripped over Minho’s ankle as she made her way back to her own spot, but managed to regain her balance at the last second.

She decided to look through the Snapchat stories from the night before, and it didn’t take long at all to see that multiple fights had broken out at the event last night. The DJ had had to keep stopping everything so that security could see and reach the people involved to kick them out. This had happened at least five times.

She was very glad that she and her friends had decided to have a movie night instead.

She switched to Instagram.

Winston had gone to the club night event dressed as a ‘sexy vampire’. Jack hadn’t gone to the event, but had taken a picture of his pet duck, Mimi, sitting on top of a pumpkin. Brenda had gone to the club night event dressed as a dark angel. Sonya thought that her outfit looked really good!

She sent the post to Teresa. Teresa sometimes went a few days without checking Instagram, which meant that she’d miss things, and she’d definitely not want to miss this.

She was just about to put her phone down and try to go back to sleep for a little longer when she heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen.

She jerked upright.

“Ugh, what the hell?” came a voice - Gally’s - from somewhere behind her.

“What the fuck?” said someone else - Thomas - from somewhere to her right.

“What’s going on?” asked Harriet, blearily blinking her eyes open.

Everyone was awake and nobody was happy about it.

Wait.

Everybody was awake.

Everybody was in this room.

Nobody had been in the kitchen just now.

“Was anything left on the counter?” Sonya asked Frypan. “Could something have fallen into the sink?”

Frypan rolled his eyes and flopped back onto his pile of cushions. “It’s too early, how am I supposed to know?”

“It’s eleven,” said Sonya.

“Exactly,” said Frypan. “It’s still the morning, and I just got rudely awoken by a very loud noise.”

Thomas stood. He yawned, and said, “I’ll go see what happened.”

He left the room.

Harriet sat up and wrapped an arm around Sonya’s waist. “Hey,” she said. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sonya shuffled closer and hugged her back. “I’m just a bit freaked out.”

“Loud noises aren’t a fun way to wake up.”

“Actually,” said Sonya, “I was already awake. It was a shock, is all.”

Harriet rested her head on Sonya’s shoulder. “Yeah. It was probably just friction losing a battle and gravity being a dick.”

“Probably,” agreed Sonya.

Thomas returned.

“There are a bunch of knives on the ground in there.”

Everything was silent and still for a few seconds.

Then:

“What?”

“Are you being serious?”

“How the fuck did that happen?”

Everyone stood and pushed their way out of the living room, making their way to the kitchen door and crowding around it.

Sonya was briefly thankful for being the smallest out of all her friends. She was able to push her way to the front with relative ease.

Thomas had not been kidding.

What looked like most, if not all, of the knives in the kitchen were scattered on the floor.

Last time that Sonya, or anyone, had been in here, those knives had been in drawers where they belonged. And even if they’d been left on the countertops in such a way that them falling was a possibility, which they hadn’t been, then they would’ve fallen a lot closer to the side of the room. These were scattered  _ everywhere. _

And none of them could’ve done it. Everyone had been asleep when it happened. No one had been missing. The only one who’d been awake, and had moved at all since falling asleep the night before, was Sonya herself. And obviously she knew that  _ she  _ didn’t do this.

“Are any windows open?” somebody asked.

“No,” said Harriet. “I checked them last night before we went to sleep, they’re definitely all closed.”

“Can someone check the front door?” asked Sonya.

“It’s locked!” called Teresa from down the hall a few seconds later.

“So what the fuck happened here?” asked Frypan.

If Sonya were her brother, she’d throw herself into solving this particular mystery. And she had to admit that there  _ was  _ a small part of her that wanted to get to the bottom of this. But right now, she was tired, and she’d watched a lot of movies involving the supernatural in the last 24 hours.

She stepped into the room and started picking up the knives.

“What are you doing?” asked Minho.

“Putting these in the sink so we can wash them,” said Sonya. “The people who live here should check that none of our things are missing, and we should check the attic at some point today. If we don’t find anything amiss, then we should accept that we’re haunted and move on with our lives.”

Harriet joined Sonya in picking up the knives.

“Hey Fry,” said Teresa from the back of the group. “I  _ told  _ you that I wasn’t the one messing with your stuff.”

“Yeah yeah,” said Frypan. “Whatever you say.”

  
  


“Come on,” said Janson. “You’ve gotta admit it was a little funny.”

“I don’t have to admit anything,” said Teresa. “It wasn’t funny. I’ve told you multiple times not to do shit like that. Tom was moments away from calling the cops because he thought we had an intruder.”

“But everyone else was saying that it was fine, you had it under control.”

Teresa sighed. “I appreciate that you don’t know my brother very well, but most of the time when he gets an idea in his head, that’s it. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. We’re lucky I was able to talk him down.”

“Lucky?” Janson laughed. “You think you would’ve been discovered if the police came here?”

“No,” said Teresa. “It just would’ve been a pain in the ass, and they obviously wouldn’t find any intruders, so we’d probably get fined or some shit on top of that for the false alarm.”

“And this  _ has  _ to be avoided?” 

“Yes!” Teresa finished writing the last sentence she needed to and started to set things up ready for what she’d be doing that day. “I have better things to do with my time than watch people searching for an intruder they can’t see, and my money is reserved for things like food and rent. If your bullshit ends up costing me anything then you’ll owe me, plain and simple.”

“Owe you?” Janson looked dubious. “What could you mean by that?”

“I mean that you’ll owe me favours to make up for whatever you made me lose.”

Janson pulled a face.

“Yeah,” said Teresa. “Exactly. So stop disturbing my housemates.”  
She slid the paper into the prepared envelope, sealed it, and stood.

“What are you doing?” asked Janson.

“I’m dealing with the FBI agents,” said Teresa.

She put the envelope in her bag.

“How?”

“Are you sure you want me to explain it?” she asked. “Or do you just want to watch?”

Janson smiled. “I’ll watch.”

Teresa nodded, put her phone down on her desk, and left her room.

The nearest bus stop was just down the road from her house. If the bus was on time, then Teresa would’ve only needed to wait at the bus stop for three minutes.

The bus was not on time.

The bus was  _ never  _ on time.

Teresa had expected this. What she’d prepared wasn’t due to start for another hour. The bus could be late. It was fine.

She took the extra few minutes to dig the correct change for a return ticket out of her wallet.

“Don’t you usually buy the ticket on your phone? It’s cheaper on the app, right?” asked Janson.

Teresa glanced sideways at him, and nodded.

“Then why are you getting coins ready? Just use your phone.”

She shook her head.

Getting caught on CCTV was inevitable no matter where she went or what she did, but she was going to take any chance she could to minimise the digital trail she left today. It wasn’t likely that a connection would be drawn between her being in town and the FBI agents all dying, but it was a possibility, and she wanted to avoid that possibility from becoming reality.

If she had her phone with her, then she’d be tracked. Leaving it in her room meant that, as far as all the metadata was concerned, that’s where she was. And if paying 30 pence more for the ticket meant that the bus company also didn’t know that she was there then she’d cough up the 30 pence.

The bus arrived and she was in town just under half an hour later.

She went into the Starbucks that was closest to the bus stop. She paid for her order in cash, and sat at the table near the back of the shop.

All she needed to do for now was wait.

“What are you doing?” asked Janson.

She sighed, sipped her coffee, and said under her breath, “Waiting for Mark to arrive.”

Janson laughed. “That’s a  _ very  _ interesting way of using the notebook! I’ve never seen anyone else, human or shinigami, use it like you’ve been using it!”

It didn’t surprise her that nobody else had been using it like she had. Most people would just use the notebook to kill. That’s what she did most of the time.

But her tests had shown that it could also be used to control people’s actions before their deaths, with the only caveat being that it had to be plausible.

She needed Mark alive for a short while. She needed him to do some things for her. If she’d written any instructions that weren’t possible, then he’d have died of a heart attack already, and she’d be in a lot of trouble.

But she’d planned ahead.

She’d written Mark’s name, and everything she wanted him to do today, into the Death Note three days ago.

That gave him more then enough time to get back here if by some chance he’d been reassigned somewhere else in the country or world. And she’d been checking up on his social media pages. He’d retweeted something that morning. He was very much still alive.

But not for much longer.

Teresa sipped her coffee and kept her gaze focused on the door.

At exactly 3:26pm, Mark Murphy walked in.

He went to the counter and placed his order.

She’d written that he’d order his favourite. She wanted him to have something that he enjoyed in his last hour alive.

She wasn’t a monster.

His name was called, and he collected his drink. He took it to an empty table.

Teresa finished her coffee and stood.

As she walked past his table towards the exit, without breaking her stride, she placed an earpiece and microphone on his table. It was from a set of spy-themed toys. It hadn’t been difficult to find, and while the plastic looked crude and felt unpleasant, anything said through it would be unrecorded and untraceable.

Along with it she also left a note.

_ ‘Wear me’ _

She’d written in the Death Note that he’d comply.

She put on her own earpiece and ducked out of sight of the Starbucks’ entrance.

“Hello?” came Mark’s voice through the earpiece not long after. “Who’s there.”

“Mark Murphy,” said Teresa. “I am Kira.”

Mark spluttered.

“What are you talking about? Who the hell are you? This isn’t funny, you know!”

“I’m Kira,” repeated Teresa. “And I can prove it.”

“No,” said Mark. “Don’t-”

Mark’s voice cut off with a gasp.

Teresa checked the time on her phone.

Right on schedule.

“The man behind the counter who just collapsed was a student at the nearby university. He was a serial rapist, who’d managed to get the charges against him dropped due to a lack of evidence every time his actions were reported. He even made a habit of bragging about what he’d done. He was a menace to society, and the world is better off without him.”

“You-” Mark began, but he didn’t continue the sentence.

“If you’re not convinced of my identity, pick someone else you can see,” said Teresa. “I’ll kill them for you.”

“No!” said Mark. “No, I believe you. You’re Kira.”

“Good,” said Teresa. “Now, I believe you have a fianc é e, isn’t that right? Her name is Trina?”

There was a moment of silence.

Then, Mark spoke.

“Please don’t hurt her.”

“So long as you do exactly as I tell you to, without telling anybody else what’s going on, I won’t have any reason to. If I suspect that you’re even thinking about calling for help, your girlfriend dies. Understood?”

Teresa had written that he wouldn’t reach out for help, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.

“Understood,” said Mark. His voice was shaking, like he was trying not to cry. “I’ll do as you say. Just, please, leave Trina out of it.”

“How many FBI agents are working the Kira case right now?”

“Twelve of us were assigned to the case,” said Mark.

“Do you know their names?”

“Not all of them,” he said. “That’s how these things always work.”

Teresa had expected that response. If he  _ had  _ known all their names, then the time this would take could’ve been cut down. But she’d prepared under the assumption that he wouldn’t know them.

“There’s an empty table near the back that has a plastic bag sitting underneath it. Go and get that bag.”

She heard rustling sounds through her earpiece as he did as he was told.

“Got it.”

“Good,” she said. “Take what’s in the bag out and spread it on the table in front of you.”

More rustling.

“Done.”

“Describe it to me.”

“There are two envelopes. One envelope is sealed, with slits in it that show blank paper through them. The other envelope is unsealed, and has an address written on it and a first class stamp in the corner.” He sighed. “I know this address.”

This was why she’d had to make  _ sure  _ that he wouldn’t be able to alert anyone else to what was going on.

“You should be getting an email in the next few seconds,” she said. “That email will contain scans of the IDs of all the FBI agents that have been assigned to the Kira investigation.”

“Miss Agnes,” said Mark. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Confirm receipt of the email.”

A pause.

“I’ve got it.”

“Good,” said Teresa. “Now, look at the face of the person in the first ID. Focus on it. Do not look away until you’re confident that you can hold the image of their face in your mind. Let me know when you’ve got it.”

Another pause.

“Okay,” said Mark.

“Okay,” said Teresa. “Keeping that person’s face in your mind, write their name in the first slot.”

“But-”

“Just do it.”

A few seconds passed.

“Done.”

“Now repeat that process for each of the agents listed in that email. There should be more than enough open slots for them in that envelope.”

“Is that it?”

“You’ll find out when you’ve done what I’ve told you to.”

A few minutes passed as Mark did as he was told.

“I’m done,” he eventually said. “All their names have been written in the slots.”

“Good,” said Teresa. “Next, I want you to fold the envelope with the slots in half, and put it in the envelope with the address and stamp. Once it’s in, seal the outer envelope.”

“Okay, done.”

“I just have three more tasks for you, and then you’re done for good. First, finish your drink. Take as long as you like. There’s no rush. Second, when you leave the shop, turn right. A few metres away in that direction, you’ll find a postbox. Put the newly sealed envelope in there. Third and last, return to your day as normal, and don’t tell anyone about our communication today. Repeat my instructions back so that I know you’ve understood.”

“Finish my drink, post the envelope, and pretend that this never happened.”

“Close enough.”

“Miss Agnes, you  _ know  _ I can’t-”

“Do I need to remind you of what will happen to Trina if you deviate even the slightest amount from what I’ve instructed you to do?”

“...No,” said Mark. “I’ll do as you say.”

“Good,” said Teresa. “Enjoy your drink.”

Without waiting for his response, she took off her earpiece, threw it in the nearest bin, and walked away.

She didn’t need to stick around to make sure he followed through. She’d written that he’d do as he was told. He’d then wander the shops for a couple of hours before dying of a heart attack near the train station.

As for his colleagues, he’d just written their names while picturing their faces on a page of the Death Note. Over the course of the next twelve hours, one FBI agent would die each hour until they were all gone.

His direct superior was already dead. He’d sent out the email with the identities of every FBI agent that was working on the Kira case to every agent that was working on the Kira case, and had suffered a heart attack immediately upon pressing send.

Just like that, her FBI problem was taken care of, and the taskforce would soon discover how little faith Newt had in them.

The only thing that she was waiting for now was for the envelope with the Death Note pages to make its way back to her. Then she could dispose of the evidence, and she’d be home free.

For now, she was going to enjoy her day in town.

And she was going to stay well away from the train station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the group calls going to get dessert a 'gay dessert session' because nobody in that group is straight, this is inspired by my friendship group who call it the exact same thing. ik that something like that can be a bit yikes if it comes from an allocishet person, but i promise that i am not allo or cis or het. probably nobody was going to take issue with this but i wanted to put it out there just in case it was bothering anyone :D


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it has been a Hot Minute and i can't promise anything but uh this is a newt heavy chapter so enjoy? i guess??

Newt didn’t like being woken up by his phone ringing at the best of times.

The phone call in question could be from God Themself telling him that world peace had been achieved, and everything else that he’d ever wanted could be his forever. He’d  _ still  _ be annoyed and upset that he’d been woken up by that ringtone.

And this?

This wasn’t even the best of times.

The phone number that the call was coming from was one of the ones used by upper management in the FBI. He didn’t recognise the voice of the person on the other end of the line, but it quickly became apparent why that was.

The agent that Newt had been communicating with, along with all twelve of his team members, were dead.

It had happened through the night.

One by one.

On the hour, every hour, until none of them were left.

The FBI were withdrawing. They weren’t going to send anybody to replace the agents who had died, and they were informing the British police force of what had happened.

Newt understood. There was no other option, really. Thirteen people had died because of the investigation. The FBI had a duty to prevent anything like this from happening again, and as  _ people  _ they had a moral obligation to be transparent with everyone else who was possibly at risk as to what had happened.

Kira had won this round.

But if Newt had anything to do with it, they would  _ not  _ win the war.

9am rolled around.

Newt didn’t join the video stream right away. He knew that the moment he did, the taskforce would demand he explain himself, that he explain why he’d instructed FBI agents to spy on them and their families. It didn’t matter that Newt knew that his actions were perfectly reasonable. There was no way that most of the taskforce members would see it that way.

Newt knew that he’d need to figure out a way to phrase it that would pacify the most amount of people soon, but he also needed to give himself as much time as possible to do that. Which meant not joining the video feed at the earliest opportunity.

But in the end, it didn’t matter. He received a video call less than three minutes after the time he usually joined. He hadn’t had nearly enough time to decide on what the best thing to say was.

He was just going to have to wing it.

Double checking that the camera was still off - it would be just his luck for everything else to go wrong at once, but no, the camera hadn’t magically turned itself on - he accepted the call.

“Newt,” said Mary. She was sitting at the desk, blocking Newt’s view of the rest of the room. “Good morning.”

“Good morning Mary.”

“You know what I’m about to say.”

There was no point denying it. “Yes,” said Newt. “I do.”

Mary sighed. “Look,” she said. “A lot of my people are angry, and even more of them are scared. I don’t think that you would’ve had us spied on if it wasn’t important.”

Newt nodded automatically. Even if she couldn’t see him, this kind of body language came out naturally. He just needed to remember not to rely on it, which was simple enough for him. He’d had years of practise. “It’s possible that there was a leak of information to Kira from within the taskforce, which means that Kira is connected to a taskforce member. In the past I’ve found that suggestions such as these don’t tend to go down well with the teams I work with, which is why I brought in the FBI. They weren’t affiliated with anybody here.”

“And now they’re all dead.”

“Yes,” said Newt. “I didn’t anticipate this. Kira must’ve caught on that they were here. The silver lining is that this is more evidence that I’m right that Kira is connected to the taskforce in some way, but I think we can all agree that we’d prefer that those agents were still alive than to have further confirmation of an idea that I was already sure of.”

Mary was silent for a few moments.

“I need to speak with my team,” she finally said. “And I need to speak with my family. When we’re ready to collaborate with you again, we’ll contact you. Until then, this computer is being turned off. Do you understand?”

He’d been a little worried that the taskforce had been about to kick him off the case. Technically, they still could, but going away and talking it over would hopefully give them all a chance to cool off and see it from his perspective. This was good news.

“Yes,” he said. “I understand. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Mary nodded, and cut the connection.

Newt stood, walked over to the nearest sofa, and flopped down onto it.

He hoped that they wouldn’t take too long to come to a decision about what they wanted to do next.

  
  


**Family Chat**

**Mary:** Thomas, Teresa, when are you both available to call?

**Mary:** I need to talk to you both. Ideally at the same time.

**Thomas:** i’m free all day

**Teresa:** it’s sunday so yeah i’m free too

**Mary:** OK I’m going to video call you.

  
  


Thomas loaded into the video call a few seconds before Teresa did.

“Ha! Beat you!”

Teresa pulled a face. “Yeah, yeah,” she said.

Mary smiled. “How are you two doing?” she asked.

Teresa launched into a detailed description of how her classes were going. Thomas mostly tuned out. He loved his sister dearly, but he really didn’t need to hear all about how she was staying on top of her work. Of course she was staying on top of her work. That’s what she always did.

“How about you, Thomas?” Mary asked when Teresa was done.

“Teresa’s house is haunted,” said Thomas.

Teresa’s face morphed into one of slight panic and she shook her head.

Oh yeah. Telling their mother about the possible intruder who threw some knives around while everyone slept and then disappeared without a trace  _ might  _ not be such a great idea. She had enough on her plate without needing to worry about them as well.

“What?” said their mother.

“A poster fell down during the night on Halloween and everyone’s being overdramatic about it,” said Teresa.

“Oh,” said their mother. “Well that’s alright then.”

“Is everything okay?” asked Teresa. “You don’t usually insist on talking to us both at once like this.”

“Is it a crime for me to want to talk to both my beautiful grown up children?”

“Mum!”

Their mother’s smile fell. “Yeah,” she said. “There’s something important that I wanted to talk to you two about.”

“What is it?” said Thomas.

“You’re both very bright,” said their mother, “so you’d probably put this together for yourselves already. You’re aware of the serial killer known as Kira?”

“Yes,” said Thomas.

Teresa nodded.

“Well, you’ll also be aware that there’s an ongoing investigation into Kira’s identity, with the aim of stopping their attacks and arresting them.”

“Of course we are,” said Thomas. “That thing with the decoy that Newt did was so awesome! And it was all anyone was talking about for ages, there’s no way we could’ve missed it.”

Their mother didn’t seem to share Thomas’ enthusiasm.

“I’m the one who’s currently in charge of the investigation.

Teresa nodded again. “I thought so.”

“That’s so cool!” said Thomas. “I’m sure you’re gonna catch them! You’re one of the best people they’ve got! They couldn’t have picked a better person to lead the team!”

Their mother laughed. “Thanks Thomas,” she said. “Your belief in me is appreciated.”

“Why are you telling us this now?” asked Teresa. “What changed?”

“Yeah,” said Thomas. “You said you had something important to talk to us about? That wouldn’t have been it.”

“The detective Newt brought twelve FBI agents into the country to help with the investigation. All twelve of those agents, along with their direct superior back in the States, died yesterday.”

FBI agents?

Did that mean that the FBI agent that had been there during that robbery had been in the country for the Kira investigation?

What the hell?

But if  _ that  _ had been why he’d been here, then what had he been doing in that particular cafe at that particular time? And Teresa had mentioned seeing him around. If he was here investigating Kira, then that didn’t make any sense? What leads could he possibly be gathering by hanging around a university?

Unless they thought that Kira was a university student.

But there were so many universities in the UK, and each university had so many students, that they would’ve needed way more than twelve agents to make that line of investigation worth it. 

So again. What the hell?

And to cap it all off: that agent was dead now.

He’d probably saved Thomas’ life. If he hadn’t been there, Thomas  _ would  _ have charged at the robber. With some distance from the situation, of course he realised that rushing at the robber would only have ended in him getting himself shot. But at the time he hadn’t considered that part at all. He’d been focused on removing the danger, and didn’t stop to think that the danger also applied to him.

That FBI agent had stopped him.

Now that FBI agent was dead, and Thomas hadn’t even looked at his ID closely enough to remember the guy’s name.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, one of the many things that were rushing through his brain, but Teresa got there first.

“That’s horrible!”

“It is,” agreed their mother. “And it’s a stark reminder of what we’re up against, and the risks we’re taking by rallying against Kira.” She sighed. “I told my team that they wouldn’t face any penalties if they requested to be transferred to another case, and a lot of them have taken me up on that offer.”

“You should quit too!” said Teresa. “It’s not worth staying! What if Kira kills you? What then?”

Their mother smiled gently. “I’m not going to quit. I’ve thought about it very hard. I’ve got plenty of reasons to quit, but the fact of the matter is that I’d always know that I’d decided that my own life was more important than the lives of countless others, and I don’t want to be that person.”

“But what about-” Teresa started.

“I’ll be careful,” said their mother. “I won’t run into danger, and I’m deactivating all my social media profiles for the duration of the investigation so that information about me isn’t so easy to find. And if something  _ does  _ happen to me, I promise that you two and Chuck will be taken care of.”

“That’s not the  _ point,”  _ said Teresa. “It’s not the money, it’s  _ you.  _ You say you’re not more important than the people that Kira’s killing, but to me you  _ are!” _

“I understand,” said their mother. “Believe me, if either of you were at risk I would be demanding that you remove yourselves from that situation immediately. But that’s not the case here, and I want to stay with the investigation.”

“Have you spoken to Chuck about this?” asked Thomas.

“Yes,” said their mother. “On balance he’s supportive of me staying with the investigation, but he does share your concerns.”

“And that’s what he’ll tell me if I call him right now?” asked Teresa.

Their mother nodded. “It is.”

Teresa crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said. “Just be careful, okay? Don’t get hurt.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I think you’re doing a really good thing,” said Thomas. “And if Kira  _ does  _ do anything to you, I’ll track them down myself. They won’t be allowed to get away with it!”

Their mother laughed. “Okay,” she said. “If Kira does get to me, you can throw yourself into the ring. Just make sure you don’t get hurt yourself while doing so.”

“Mum, come on,” said Thomas. “When have you ever known me  _ not  _ to be careful?”

Teresa burst out laughing.

  
  


Newt’s computer alerted him of an incoming video call sometime in the early evening.

He scrambled across the room to accept it.

When it connected, it opened on the taskforce headquarters, just like normal.

But something was different.

Usually, the headquarters was full of people. There were a lot of people on the taskforce, and they were all busy following up on leads in the investigation.

That wasn’t the case anymore.

Where before there had been over fifty people, Newt now counted only six.

Frankly, he was surprised that even those six had decided to stay.

“Newt,” said Mary. “These are all the people who’ve decided to remain on the case.”

“Thank you all,” said Newt. “I understand that you’re all taking a personal risk to do this. I really appreciate it.”

A man whose name Newt didn’t know sighed loudly. “Yeah,  _ we’re  _ at risk. But you’ve spent this whole time hiding away in safety, without having to show your name or face to anyone. How is that fair?”

“Vince,” said Mary, as if warning him to stop.

“No,” said Newt. “He’s right. It’s  _ not  _ fair. And I’m not about to remove that safety from myself either. If my identity gets made public then Kira  _ will _ kill me. I don’t want that to happen.” He paused, thinking it over. “But with such a small group there’s no reason why we should have to continue working with each other with a computer screen in the way.”

The blonde woman near the back of the room - Ava - perked up. “Are you saying-?”

“You’ve all proven yourselves to be dedicated to the case,” said Newt. “Working with you in person is the least I can do.”

“Are you sure?” asked Mary. “You shouldn’t put yourself in danger.”

“I won’t be telling any of you my name,” said Newt. “And even though there was a leak of information that led to Kira from inside the taskforce, I’m reasonably sure that Kira isn’t among you.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Vince. “If Kira  _ was  _ part of the taskforce before, wouldn’t it make sense for them to stick around? Meeting you in person would probably be a dream come true for Kira.”

“True,” said Newt. “And I’ll be bearing that in mind. But the fact remains that I don’t think any of you are Kira, I’m usually a good judge of character, and without knowing my name Kira won’t be able to kill me anyway.”

He typed out a message containing the address of the hotel he was staying at, along with instructions not to all arrive at the building at once. Once it was complete, he sent it to the computer currently hosting his video call.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and he hung up.

He looked around the room.

He was glad that he was generally a tidy person. The only thing that he needed to do to make his room presentable was make the bed. Once that was done all that would be left to do was wait.

Alby let Newt know when the first half of the taskforce arrived in the hotel lobby. He let Newt know when the second half arrived half an hour later. He let Newt know when one of their number stormed out, loudly declaring that he didn’t  _ ‘have the patience to deal with this bullshit anymore’. _ And he let Newt know when they began to make their way up to his room.

A few minutes later there was a knock at his door.

“Come in,” said Newt.

The door opened, and the five remaining members of the taskforce walked in.

They closed the door behind them, and stopped a few paces in from the door.

They stared.

Newt let them.

He realised that he probably wasn’t what they were expecting.

Then Mary reached for her ID.

“Mary Cooper,” she said. “It’s very good to meet you in person, Newt, sir.”

Her actions prompted the others to do the same.

“Ava Paige.”

“Vince Pepper.”

“Alec Stevens.”

“Lana Maclay.”

Newt rolled his eyes. He mimicked a gun with his hand and pointed it at Mary. “Bang.”

Mary looked confused.

“We’ve already established that Kira needs someone’s name and face to be able to kill them,” said Newt. “You all just gave out your names like they were nothing. Please be more careful than that.”

“You knew our names already,” said Vince. “We were just being polite.”

“I know,” said Newt. “That’s not the point I’m trying to make. Introducing yourselves with your full names is a bad habit that could get you killed as long as this case is ongoing. Break that habit. And on the topic of politeness, please don’t call me ‘sir’.” He smiled. “Just ‘Newt’ will do fine.”

Mary looked relieved at that. “Okay.”

Newt sat in one of the seats, gesturing at the others to do the same. “We need to set a few ground rules for these meetings.”

The rest of the taskforce got themselves settled in the available chairs, with Alec and Lana taking the sofa.

“Of course,” said Mary.

“The first major one is that wherever I’m staying will be our de facto headquarters. I’ll be moving hotels every few days from now on. Alby will let you know where I’m staying through secure channels.”

“Why can’t you come to the real headquarters?” asked Ava.

“Because everybody knows that that’s the real headquarters,” said Vince, before Newt had a chance to say anything. “If someone new starts being seen going in and out of there, it won’t take much to figure out who that person is.”

“Oh,” said Ava. “Yeah okay. That was a stupid question.”

Newt shook his head. “There aren’t any stupid questions. Working out of hotel rooms is pretty unconventional, so of course it would raise some questions. If there’s anything you’re not sure about at any point, please ask.” He looked around at the group. “That goes for all of you. It’s a lot better for you to ask a question that you think might be stupid, than for you to act with incorrect information in mind. You could potentially get yourself or a colleague killed if you do that. It goes without saying that that’s something to be avoided at all costs.”

“Yes,” said Lana. “It does.”

“The second ground rule is that nothing case-related gets written on any electronic devices from now on, and anything written on paper must be destroyed before it leaves the room. Any information we need has to be memorised.”

“Are you for real?” said Alec.

“This is to mitigate the leak, isn’t it?” said Mary.

Newt nodded. “We don’t know who the source of the leak was, and it’s possible that the source is one of the people who are still here.”

“You’re saying that Kira could still be a friend or relative of one of us?” said Lana.

“Yes,” said Newt. “I know it’s not a nice thing to have to think about, but we can’t just pretend it’s not possible because we don’t like it.”

Lana nodded. “That sounds reasonable to me.”

The others murmured their assent.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” said Newt.

Alby walked in. He removed his hat and coat, the brim and collar of which usually obscured his face, and hung them on the hook by the door. He then turned to the group, and smiled.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Alby. I’m Newt’s in person liaison.” He nodded towards Mary. “We’ve already been introduced.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “But you kept your face covered.”

Alby shrugged. “Sorry about that,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry at all, nor did Newt expect him to. “Safety first and all.”

He was carrying a briefcase. He put the briefcase on the bed closest to him, and opened it.

“What are you doing?” asked Ava.

“Newt asked me to make some new IDs for all of you,” he said.

He passed them out.

“For the duration of this case, if you find yourself needing to identify yourself to anyone who doesn’t already know exactly who you are, please use these new IDs,” said Newt. “Your faces are public. Keep your names safe.”

“Our names and ranks on these are fake,” said Alec, looking down at his new ID.

“Is this even legal?” asked Vince.

“Considering what just happened to the FBI agents, is legality really your main concern?” asked Newt, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, I got permission for this. Your information is also being updated in all databases and on all official websites until this case has been solved.”

“Thank you,” said Mary.

“It’s no problem. Now,” he said, “how about we collate all the information we’ve got so far?”

Alby sat in the last available chair, closest to the door.

He probably wasn’t going to join in with the solving of the case. He very rarely did. He’d decided a long time ago that he was content with just being Newt’s assistant, and that was still true. If they needed anything from him, he’d get it done as quickly as possible. Until then he’d be happy just to watch the proceedings.

Not that his input would be unwelcome. Alby was very capable, and on the rare occasions that he  _ did  _ add something to the conversation, his insights were valuable.

Newt just knew better than to expect him to contribute.

“What’s there to collate?” asked Vince. “Haven’t we hit a dead end?”

“Most of us didn’t know about the FBI agents until this morning,” said Mary. “I’m guessing their presence can teach us something?”

Newt nodded. “We all remember how Kira’s victims started acting strangely before they died?”

“Yes,” said Lana. “We were seeing escape attempts and suicide notes being left before they suffered the typical heart attack for over a week.”

“We can assume that Kira learned that there was an FBI agent following them  _ before  _ those tests started,” said Newt.

“What makes you say that?” asked Ava.

“Because Kira needed the names and faces of all the agents,” said Mary.

Newt smiled. He was glad to have someone who understood what he was getting at without him having to spell it out for them.

Lana nodded in agreement, understanding it as well. 

Everyone else still looked confused.

Which was fair. He hadn’t expected any of them to get it this quickly, so to have two who  _ did _ was more than he’d hoped for.

“In order to kill all the FBI agents, Kira needed to know their names and faces,” said Newt. “Shortly before the FBI director died from a heart attack, he sent out a file to every agent working on the Kira case which contained scanned images of all of their IDs. Then the FBI agents all died one at a time. From this, and from the strange ways that prisoners acted before their deaths, we know that Kira’s ability to kill also lets them control people shortly before their deaths. Kira got the names and faces of all the agents by controlling the director to send that information out. Therefore, Kira started testing how far their control of people’s actions could go when they learnt that they’d be needing to use that ability, which was when they learnt that they or someone close to them was being followed.”

Once Newt finished this explanation, none of the group looked confused anymore.

“How long had the FBI agents been in the country before the experiments started?” asked Alec.

“Five days,” said Newt.

“That’s not a wide window.”

“No it isn’t,” said Newt. “Which is good news for us. A narrower window of time means a smaller selection of people. Kira’s been narrowed down by a lot.”

“Kira was also in contact with one of the agents the day they died,” said Mary.

Everyone turned to look at her.

“The FBI director only sent that email to the agents,” she said. “For Kira to get that information, they had to have been in contact with at least one of them. So as well as looking into who they were trailing before the experiments started, we should also look into their movements on the day they all died.”

The other members of the taskforce nodded in agreement.

Newt grinned.

There was a reason that Mary had been put in charge of the investigation, and that right there was it.

They got to work first thing the next morning.

And they immediately came across a problem.

The problem was that none of the FBI agents had done anything out of the ordinary on their last day alive.

Most of them had stuck with their targets, some had had a day off. Of those who had stuck with their targets, none of them had come into direct contact with them, or with anyone else. Of those who had had a day off, they’d each done something different with their day. One of them had travelled down to London and visited some of the galleries, one of them had spent the day exploring the city that his targets were living in, and one of them had spent the day in her hotel room watching Disney movies.

“Maybe there isn’t anything,” said Ava, after five hours of sifting through footage.

“There has to be something,” said Mary. “This doesn’t make any sense unless there’s something. Kira  _ had  _ to have come into contact with one of the agents.”

“Kira was never going to be easy to spot,” said Newt. “It’d be nice if they were, but we shouldn’t expect them to make anything easy for us.”

“Uh, guys?”

“Yes Lana?” said Newt. It was the first time she’d spoken in two hours.

“I think I’ve found something.”

Everyone paused the footage on their own screens and crowded around hers.

“The agent’s name is Mark Murphy,” she said. He was one of the agents who’d had a day off, the one who’d explored his targets’ home city. “He entered the Starbucks at 3:26pm, and was empty handed.” She sped through the next half an hour of footage. “He left the Starbucks at 3:54pm, after the paramedics had gone, and he wasn’t empty handed anymore.”

“Paramedics?” asked Ava.

“There was a Kira death in there while Mark was inside.”

“Zoom in,” said Newt.

“Way ahead of you,” said Lana, and she switched to another window that had a collage of zoomed in stills of what Mark had been holding.

_ “I  _ think  _ I’ve found something.”  _ said Alec. He punched her shoulder. “You  _ have  _ found something, and you know it. Have a bit more confidence in yourself.”

Lana failed to suppress a smile.

She pointed at the screen. “This looks like a plastic bag, and this looks like an envelope. The address on it can’t be made out.”

She switched back to the window with the footage and pressed play.

On-screen, Mark Murphy walked to the post box that was a few meters down the road from the Starbucks and put the envelope inside. He then scrunched up the plastic bag, put it into his pocket, and walked off in the opposite direction. Once he was out of shot, Lana paused the video.

“I’ll get the CCTV footage from inside,” said Vince, stepping away and pulling his phone out.

“What did he do for the rest of the day?” asked Mary.

“He wandered around the shops like everyone else in the city that day,” said Lana. “He died at 6pm at the train station. Nothing suspicious.”

“So we’re thinking he came into contact with Kira inside that Starbucks?” asked Ava.

“It’s looking likely,” said Newt.

“It’s times like these that make you wish that the super enhancement tech you see in the movies was real,” said Mary. “If we could see the address on that envelope it would help us a lot.”

Newt nodded in agreement. “Is there any chance that the post box hasn’t been emptied yet?”

Lana shook her head. “I already checked,” she said. “It got emptied before Murphy was even dead.”

“Bad news,” said Vince as he rejoined the group. “The CCTV in that particular Starbucks only points at the counter. The owner seems to think that the only reason why cameras are needed is for loss prevention.”

The others expressed their disappointment with this development verbally, but Newt stayed quiet. He felt the same as them, of course it wasn’t ideal, but maybe Kira would show themself on camera?

He rewound the footage and took another look.

No, it wasn’t any use. So many people entered and exited the shop while Mark was in there, not to mention the number of people who’d been in there the whole time, and most of their faces were obscured on camera. They could get the details of which phones had been connected nearby at the time, but narrowing that data down from the whole surrounding area to just when and where they needed was almost a fool’s errand, and if Kira had any sense then they wouldn’t have taken their phone there with them anyway. On top of all that was the chaos that had been caused by the sudden Kira death that had taken place. Tracking down everyone who’d been in that Starbucks at that time just wasn’t feasible.

This was frustrating. Kira had been in there, they  _ had  _ to have been. But there was nothing they could do about it.

But...

“It’s okay,” said Newt. “Our approach going into this was that the agent who’d had contact with Kira must’ve been caught trailing them at some point in the first five days. We just need to know who he was trailing.”

He’d requested this information the night before, and had received a list of assignments, along with a warning not to contact the FBI about this again. He didn’t know what order the agents had tailed their targets in, and so couldn’t pinpoint exactly which of Mark’s targets he’d followed during those crucial first five days, but the list of people that Mark had been assigned in total would narrow the suspect list down to a small and easy to manage number.

He scrolled down to Mark’s name in the list, and his heart dropped.

Mark Murphy had been assigned to the family of Emily Watts, who was among the many officers who’d already left the investigation, and the student households of Mary Cooper’s children.

One of whom, it turned out, was his sister’s housemate.

Mark had been instructed to investigate everyone in those two households under the assumption that if either Thomas Cooper or Teresa Agnes had accessed confidential information about the Kira case, then they could’ve shared that with a friend, either accidentally or not. Nobody in the FBI had been informed that there was anything special about Sonya Mendes. There hadn’t been any plans for her to be followed or investigated for her connection to Newt, but it looked like it may have happened anyway.

Sonya had talked about Thomas and Teresa before. They were two of her best friends, with the two households being a close friendship group who’d all lived together in their first year. Thomas was kind hearted, impulsive, but ultimately very intelligent. Teresa was just as intelligent, but was more open about it than her brother, and was the more level-headed of the two.

Newt hadn’t realised that they were his colleague’s kids.

It was a small world.

“Mark Murphy was investigating three separate households,” Newt said aloud. He looked at Mary. “The family of Emily Watts, and the households of your children.”

There was a low murmur through the room as everyone else turned to face Mary.

Her expression was neutral, and if Newt had to guess he’d say that she was trying very hard to keep it that way. He was grateful. Her first instinct was probably to yell that it couldn’t possibly be her kids, or any of her kids’ friends, but she wasn’t doing that because she knew it wouldn’t help.

“What’s the next step?” she asked.

“The fastest way of solving this case would be to catch Kira in the act.”

Vince scoffed. “And how exactly are you planning on doing that? We don’t exactly have the resources to trail all these people for as long as it would take.”

Newt  _ knew  _ that what he was about to suggest would be unpopular. He didn’t exactly like it either. But if they waited for Kira to make their identity obvious in some other way, they’d be waiting a long time, and all the while people would be dying.

“I was thinking that we place cameras and bugs inside the homes of the suspects.”

For a few seconds, nobody said anything.

Then...

“That’s a human rights’ violation,” said Lana.

“We can’t do that,” said Vince.

“Didn’t you just say that we don’t have the resources to tail them, though?” said Ava.

“There are specific laws against something like that!” Alec clenched his fists.

Lana looked pained. “I understand the thought process behind doing something like this, but we can’t. It’s wrong.  _ And  _ the footage wouldn’t be admissible in court.”

Ava shook her head. “All I’m saying is this doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea to me.”

“How the fuck can you call yourself a law enforcement officer if you’re so willing to break the law yourself the moment it’s more convenient to do so?” snarled Vince.

“I’m not saying I’m  _ happy  _ about it!”

“Oh yeah? From where I’m standing it kinda looks like you  _ are!” _

“Do it,” said Mary.

Everyone fell silent once again.

“Mary,” said Alec. “You  _ do  _ realise what he’s saying we should do, right?”

“Yeah,” said Vince. “These are your children we’re talking about!”

“I know,” said Mary. “And I’m not happy about it either. But Vince  _ was  _ right. We don’t have the resources to tail them all indefinitely, and if we rely on Kira making a mistake then a lot of people will die before that happens. If we put cameras in my kids’ houses, then we can clear their names and their friends’ names faster than if we don’t.” She fixed Newt with a stare. “Just make sure there aren’t any blindspots. This can’t have been for nothing.”

Newt nodded. “Of course,” he said. “And I can promise that only you and I will view the footage of your family’s households, and the footage will be destroyed once we’re done with it.”

Lana cleared her throat. “Even if we  _ do  _ find out who Kira is with this, that doesn’t solve the problem of no court in their right mind ever accepting this as evidence.”

“They will if it comes from Newt,” said Ava.

“No, Lana’s right,” said Newt. “If we’re able to pinpoint Kira this way, then we’ll have to find some other way of proving that it’s them, but we’ll know where to focus our efforts.”

Lana nodded. “That makes sense.”

“It’s settled then?” said Newt, opening a new message to Alby and writing out instructions.

Nobody replied, which Newt took as meaning  _ yes. _

“Good,” he said, and he sent the message. “Everything will be in place by the end of tomorrow.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reasons for the delay on this: life, depression, supernatural
> 
> this fic is not abandoned and will not be abandoned, don't worry!!

Sonya was supposed to be in a lecture.

If Sonya had had everything her way, that’s exactly where she’d be right now.

Someone had to send a memo out to lecturers reminding them that if they’re unable to turn up to class, then they need to send out notice of this at some point  _ before  _ the class is due to start.

Sonya hadn’t thought that a single email could send her into such a boiling rage, but getting an email saying that the 10am lecture was canceled after she’d already sat in the lecture theatre for eleven minutes had made her ready and willing to punch the next person who so much as breathed at her wrong.

She could’ve stayed in  _ bed. _

But no, she’d dragged herself to campus in the pouring rain with the expectation that class would be running as usual and so she needed to be there.

By the time she’d made it back home, her umbrella was failing her and the bottom of her bag was wet.  _ And _ she’d have to go back out there again later for her class at 4pm.

She hoped it would get cancelled too. It wasn’t likely to be, but she could dream.

She got her keys out, put the one for the front door in the lock, and-

It wouldn’t turn.

She took a step back and looked at the house again, in case she’d got the wrong door.

No, this was  _ definitely  _ her house.

So why didn’t her key work?

The only other explanation she could think of - that didn’t involve the universe pulling a prank on her - was that the door was already unlocked. Which it couldn't have been. She’d been the last one to leave that morning, and she’d locked it herself. She’d checked it multiple times, and even doubled back to be sure. It simply wasn’t possible that she’d left the door unlocked. She knew that she hadn’t.

Maybe they really  _ did  _ have an intruder living in their house?

She tried the handle.

The door opened.

The first thing she saw was the shoe pile that was right next to the door. The shoes that had been there when she left, including everyone’s slippers, were untouched. If someone had come home and forgotten to lock the door, they’d have taken their slippers and put their own wet shoes next to the pile.

So it wasn’t any of her housemates.

Then she noticed that something  _ was  _ different about the pile.

Just off to the side was a pair of men’s trainers that she didn’t recognise.

She could feel her heart in her throat.

She pushed her way inside, dropped her bag, and collapsed her umbrella halfway so it was now a long wet stick. She grasped it with both hands and held it out in front of her.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

No response.

“I’m warning you! Get out now, or I’m calling the police!”

“You don’t need to do that,” replied a voice from the living room.

Sonya froze, then forced herself to unfreeze.

That voice didn’t belong to anyone who lived there, and it didn’t belong to anyone she knew from uni, but it was still familiar. She knew it from somewhere, but couldn’t put her finger on where exactly.

She decided that she didn’t care.

She held the umbrella aloft, ready to bring it down on whoever was in her house, and pushed open the living room door.

Only to see Alby, standing on a stepladder at the far end of the room and surrounded by wires.

“Alby?”

“Hey Sonya,” he said. “You’re supposed to be in class right now.”

She dropped her arms down. “It got cancelled.” She shook her head. “What are you doing here? Actually,” she put the umbrella down and walked further into the room. “What are you  _ doing?” _

Alby sighed, and climbed down from the stepladder. He turned to face her. “You heard about the FBI agents dying, right?”

She nodded. “It was all over the news, pretty difficult to miss.”

“They were tailing taskforce members, their families, and their families’ households before they died, and the one that Newt and co think came into contact with Kira just before they all died was tailing people in this area. Mary Cooper’s kids, and everyone in their households.”

“You mean Thomas and Teresa?”

“And the rest of you.”

Sonya wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She didn’t love the idea that she’d been followed by an FBI agent for any length of time. But she was glad that Newt had been taking the possibility that Kira was a close associate of the taskforce seriously. But also it was sounding like  _ she’d  _ only been under suspicion because she lived with Teresa, whose mother was in the taskforce, and not because of her being Newt’s sister, which meant that Newt wasn’t being as thorough as he should’ve been.

But also she already knew that she wasn’t Kira, so that ultimately didn’t matter.

“None of that tells me why you’re here now.”

Alby picked up a wire and handed it to her.

Attached at its end was a tiny camera and microphone.

And she understood.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Which rooms?”

“All of them.”

“Even the bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

“In both houses?”

“Yeah.”

Sonya swallowed, and handed the camera back to Alby. “And this was supposed to be done while nobody was home?”

“Yes. As you can tell, that’s gone wrong.”

“You’re lucky it was me that came home, and not any of the others. Any of them would’ve fucked you up and been justified in doing so.” said Sonya. She was maybe stretching the truth a little when it came to Frypan, but Alby didn’t need to know that. The girls would’ve taken no prisoners. “Hell,  _ I  _ nearly did until I realised it was you.” She looked around. “You don’t need me to tell you that I don’t like this.”

Alby nodded. “I don’t. If it helps, there’s a third household getting this setup as well.”

“It doesn’t.” She sighed. “I get why he’s doing this, but it’s shitty, and now I’m supposed to not let my friends and girlfriend know that we’re being recorded.”

Alby shrugged. “I’m just doing what I’m told to do.”

Sonya turned around and walked out of the living room. She took her wet raincoat off, hung it on the hook by the door, and switched her shoes for her slippers.

She got her phone out of her pocket and went back into the living room.

“What rooms have you done already?” she asked.

“All the rooms upstairs. I was just about to start in here when you got back.”

“Okay.” She looked around the room once more. “Carry on. Do as Newt told you to.”

“You sure?”

“Is there any possibility of you leaving without finishing the job?”

Alby didn’t respond.

“Yeah,” she said. “Didn’t think so. Look, I don’t think that Kira lives here or is among the boys. I think that bugging our houses is a waste of time, and I  _ know  _ it’s an invasion of privacy. But it’ll help clear all our names, and it’ll give Newt peace of mind about me. So finish the job you were sent here to do.”

She unlocked her phone.

“In the meantime,” she said, “I’m going to go yell at my brother.”

  
  


Something had gone horribly wrong.

Nobody had been supposed to get home until all the cameras and microphones were in place and Alby was long gone. Newt and Mary had planned to move observation of Mary’s kids’ houses into a different room once everything was set up, and the people being observed started returning, but for now all the feeds that were already online could be seen by the whole taskforce. Newt had been watching the screens showing the bedrooms, upstairs bathroom, and hallway of his sister’s house, and there shouldn’t have been any movement in them whatsoever.

So seeing Sonya walk up the stairs and into her room was a bit of a shock.

And there was no way that she’d missed Alby on her way up.

“Uh, boss?” said Vince.

“I know, Vince,” said Newt. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Maybe she didn’t notice?” Ava suggested, her voice full of obviously false hope.

On-screen, Sonya dropped her bag by her now-closed bedroom door and she sat on the end of her bed. She tapped her phone screen a few times and brought it to her ear.

Newt’s phone began to ring.

“Sorry Ava,” said Newt, “but she noticed.”

He didn’t take his phone out of his pocket.

A few moments after it stopped ringing, Sonya let out an exaggerated sigh.

“I know you’re watching,” she said. “And I know you can hear me. Answer the phone, or I’m telling  _ everyone _ what you and Alby are doing.”

This time when Newt’s phone rang, he answered it.

“You know you’re a bastard, right?” she said, not wasting any time on pleasantries.

“Funnily enough, I  _ was _ aware of that.”

“Wait,” said Alec. “How come she has your number?”

Newt ignored him.

“Alby’s already explained everything,” said Sonya. “You can get mad at him over that if you like, but there’s no point. We both know there was no way he was gonna get away with  _ not  _ explaining, given what he was doing.”

“I’m really sorry-”

“No you’re not.” She lay back on her bed. “You’re sorry he got caught, but you’re not sorry you’re doing this. You don’t  _ enjoy  _ doing this, but that doesn’t mean you’re sorry. You see it as necessary, and if time got rewound you’d make the same decision all over again, with the only difference being that you’d make Alby do this place at a different time so he avoids me. You’re not sorry. Don’t lie to me.”

“Okay,” said Newt.

Sonya sighed. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I understand why you’re doing this. It’s extreme, and illegal, and unethical, but I get it. So you get three days before I  _ ‘find’ _ -” she held up her free hand to form air quotes - “one of the cameras and tell the others about it. Unless you want the actual police getting involved, you’ll have removed everything by then.”

“Three days won’t be enough time.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to figure something else out, aren’t you?”

“Sonya-”

“Would you like it if your room had cameras and bugs in?” She shook her head. “I have a right to privacy, Newt. We all do. And we all deserve to know when we’re being watched and when we’re not.”

“Only Mary Cooper and I will be watching the footage from you and your friends’ houses.”

“I still don’t want  _ you  _ watching me 24/7, and I don’t think that Thomas or Teresa would be happy about their mother watching  _ them  _ either.”

“It’s likely that Kira is among your friends.”

“It’s  _ possible. _ And laws about what detectives can and cannot do in the name of their investigations are there for a reason.” She sat up. “Starting from this moment, every time you try to convince me not to let the others know about the cameras at all, I’m decreasing how much time you have by a day.”

Newt swallowed. “Got it.”

“Good.” She softened slightly. “We can have a proper talk about everything later, when you don’t have your whole team listening in. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Newt. “I just have one question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in a lecture right now?”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh.

“I  _ wish.  _ It got cancelled ten minutes after it was due to start, after I’d already dragged myself there through the rain. If I were Kira my lecturer would be next.”

“You’d better hope they don’t drop dead, it’ll make you a suspect.”

“More of a suspect, you mean?” She ran her free hand through her hair. “Nah, he’s fine. If Kira does kill him in the next few days I’ll be just as shocked as everyone else, but you can go ahead and arrest me if it would make you feel better.”

“We both know it wouldn’t.”

She shrugged. “That’s not my problem.” She paused. “I’m not in a very good mood right now.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m going to hang up,” she said. “And then I’m going to have a nap. If you’re going to be watching me, then the least you can do is make yourself useful and wake me up if it looks like I’m going to be late for my class later. I need to be out of here by half three.”

“Gotcha.”

She hung up.

Newt locked his phone and put it down on the coffee table in front of him.

He then turned to face the rest of his team.

None of them said anything. They didn’t need to. Their faces said it all.

They needed an explanation, and they needed the truth.

“Sonya Mendes is my sister,” he said. “She, Alby and I all grew up together. If anyone was going to discover Alby in their home, we’re lucky it was her. Obviously, that name isn’t her real one. She started using it shortly after my first case as Newt. Nobody else knows about the connection between us.”

“Your sister?” said Mary. “But she’s one of my kids’ best friends.”

“She is,” said Newt. “I didn’t realise the connection until yesterday.”

“Was she treated with the same suspicion as all our families were?” asked Vince, his voice low and serious. “Will she be treated as just as much of a suspect as the others?”

“Surely this is something that should’ve been disclosed before now,” said Alec.

“No,” said Mary, “it makes sense why Newt didn’t tell us that he’s related to her. Especially if Kira  _ is  _ in one of those two households, and the leak is still active. If this information gets out then Kira could use her against Newt. Of course he’d want to prevent that from happening.”

“Thank you,” said Newt.

“As for whether there’ll be any favouritism,” Mary added, “don’t worry. I’m going to be watching her like a hawk. If she does anything suspicious, I won’t let it get hidden.”

“Sonya knows my real name, and she obviously knows my face.” Newt glanced back at the screen. Sonya had pulled the curtains in her room closed and was getting into bed. “It’s impossible to say with absolute certainty that she isn’t Kira, but if she  _ was,  _ either I’d be dead already, or Newton Isaacs wouldn’t have been killed. If you think that focusing on her is necessary, then do it, but I think that making her the focal point of our investigation is likely to be a waste of time.”

“Would you say that she’s as clever as you?” asked Lana.

Newt nodded.

“Then I agree that she probably isn’t Kira.” She turned to the others. “We’ve been able to narrow down the investigation this much because Kira keeps making mistakes. Someone as clever as Newt wouldn’t have made it so easy for us.”

There were a few moments of silence as the group absorbed everything they’d learnt.

“We shouldn’t discount her entirely,” said Alec, finally. “But I agree. If Kira’s among those eight, it’s probably one of the other seven.”

Mary looked uncomfortable, but nodded her agreement.

Newt understood her discomfort. If Kira was more likely to be among the other seven, that meant that they were more likely to be one of her children. They were the prime suspects out of that group anyway. They were the ones who potentially had the ability to access classified information. If Kira was any of their friends, they had to have got their information through them.

There was always the chance that Kira was a member of Emily Watts’ family, but Newt didn’t think so. He knew what the universe was like. He knew what the universe thought was funny.

If Kira was his colleague’s child, and one of his sister’s best friends, then the universe would find that very funny indeed.

  
  


Teresa arrived back home just as Sonya was making her way out.

“I thought you were spending the day on campus?”

Sonya picked up her umbrella. It was wet, she must’ve used it while it was raining earlier. “That was the plan,” she said. “But my lecture got cancelled after it was due to start and I just wanted to sleep.”

“Fair.”

Sonya waved goodbye and left. Teresa took off her shoes and went upstairs to her room.

When Teresa stepped into her room, she knew something was Wrong.

She couldn’t put her finger on what it was at first. She couldn’t tell what was setting off alarm bells in her mind. All she knew was that something was wrong. Something was different. Something had changed.

Then she started to put her finger on it.

It was lots of little things, adding up to a whole. A piece of paper she’d dropped on the floor on her way out was ever so slightly further away from the door than it had been when she left. Where her books had previously been pushed as far to the left of the shelf as they would go, they were now a little more spaced out. The colouring pencils on her desk had been laid out in a particular order and in a particular way, and while the order was the same the exact positions of the pencils were not.

Someone had been in her room, rummaged around, and had then tried very hard to make it look like they were never there.

Her room wasn’t safe anymore.

“Hey, Teresa!”

It could’ve been one of her housemates. It would’ve been out of character for one of her housemates to go into her room while she wasn’t there, but it wasn’t totally impossible. Maybe they’d been looking for something of theirs that Teresa had borrowed and not given back yet? Or maybe they’d been looking to borrow something themself?

No. It couldn’t be the first option, because Teresa hadn’t borrowed anything from any of them, and if it were the second option then they would’ve messaged her to ask first. And she trusted her housemates not to just wander into her room without having a good reason to. She couldn’t tell herself that it had just been a housemate, it just wasn’t plausible, and considering that the Kira investigation had been closing in on her before the FBI agents’ deaths, it wasn’t a sensible thing to tell herself either.

She sat in her chair and took her laptop out of her bag, trying her hardest to act naturally while also being painfully aware of every move she made.

Whoever it was who’d been in her room, they hadn’t found the Death Note. There hadn’t been a fire, and if they’d somehow found it without destroying it then she’d have already been arrested for sure.

Unless....

Unless they’d simply taken it for themself.

No. Nobody else knew she had the notebook. Nobody else knew that the notebook even existed. Nobody else could possibly have taken it from her, for any reason.

She jerked towards the drawer, wanting to check that the notebook was still there, but stopped.

If she assumed that the notebook  _ was  _ still there, then she could probably also assume that her room had been entered by someone who was working for Newt. If it had been to search her room then why weren’t they more thorough? If her room had been searched properly then there would’ve been a fire for sure.

She retracted her hand and ran it through her hair, trying to hide that she’d gone for the drawer in the first place.

“Hello? Teresa? Are you gonna say anything?”

Had Newt put cameras in her room?

No, he wouldn’t do that. There were so many things wrong with that idea, and surely Newt was better than that.

Except Teresa had already killed multiple people involved in the investigation, and Newt could be getting desperate. Desperate people did all sorts of questionable things.

Teresa stood.

She dug her wallet out of her backpack, grabbed a smaller bag, and left her room.

She walked down the stairs and marched towards the front door.

She was stopped in her tracks by her bag strag getting caught on the fire extinguisher, which was being used to hold the kitchen door open.

Which, seriously? Which idiot did that? 

She untangled herself, shoved the fire extinguisher back into the kitchen where it belonged, and closed the kitchen door.

She then left the house.

“Seriously?” said Janson. “What are you ignoring me for?”

Teresa crossed the street and walked away from the house in a random direction.

“Listen to me,” she said, her voice only just loud enough for Janson to hear her.

“I’m listening.”

“Someone’s been in my room, moved things around, and then tried to make it look like they were never there.”

“Huh. That’s bad?”

“Yeah, it’s bad.” She glanced over at him. “I think that whoever it was might have bugged my room.”

“Oh! So that’s why you weren’t talking to me?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t risk it.”

“Have you considered that you might just be being paranoid?”

She sighed.

“I’d rather be paranoid then get caught.”

“It’s a tale as old as time,” said Janson, a hint of glee shining through in his voice. “A human gets a Death Note, the human uses the Death Note, the human convinces themself that everyone knows what they did and is out to get them, and once they’ve reached that point it isn’t much longer before they self-destruct!”

Teresa stopped walking.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she breathed back out, she reminded herself that there was no point in taking a swing at the Shinigami. The best case scenario was that he’d laugh at her.

Then she had an idea.

She got her phone out of her pocket and held it to her ear. Anyone she happened to walk past would think she was simply on the phone.

She had no idea why she didn’t think of it earlier.

“Let’s say I’m right about this, and I’m not just being overly paranoid. You can’t touch anything at home at all for the foreseeable future.”

Janson’s smile dropped.

“What?”

“The last thing we need is video proof of paranormal activity of any sort. Plus, it could lead them to think that it  _ is  _ me. If I get found out because of you, or because I decide that I’m being paranoid over nothing when it’s not nothing, then this all ends. You don’t want that, do you?”

Janson shook his head.

“When we get home, I need you to search for any cameras and bugs and tell me where they are.”

“You’re giving me instructions?” He laughed. “I’m a God of Death! You have no right to tell me what to do!”

Teresa shrugged and looked him dead in the eyes. “If you want to play any video games you’re going to need to find a blindspot, aren’t you? If you don’t search, then we’ll have to assume that nowhere is safe.”

Janson scowled.

She’d got him there.

**Direct Message: Thomas**

**Teresa:** surprise i’m coming over

**Teresa:** i’m stopping as tesco on the way, want anything?

**Thomas:** p r i n g l e s

**Thomas:** also i’m in class rn so if you’re coming over now i won’t be there, someone else should be there to let you in hopefully

**Teresa:** you shouldn’t be on your phone in class!

**Thomas:** yeah yeah ik ik   
  
Teresa shoved her phone into her pocket.

She got the requested Pringles, along with a big bag of Skittles, and walked the rest of the way to the boys’ house.

Her knock on the door was answered by Minho.

“Oh, hey Tee!” He opened the door wider to let her in. “What are you doing here?”

“The age old sibling tradition of demanding each other’s attention.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding along with a smile. “I’m sorry to inform you that he isn’t here.”

“I’m aware,” she said. “He’s in class.”

“Wonders never cease.”

The front door clicked shut and Teresa took her shoes off.

“He’s not so bad this year,” she said as she did so. “He’s only skipped a couple of classes so far. Remember how he was this time last year?”

“Hey, Teresa!” said Janson. “Want me to search this place for cameras as well?”

Teresa felt like an idiot.

She hadn’t considered that there could be cameras here, but Janson was right. If her room or house had been interfered with and/or bugged, then it stood to reason that Thomas’ room or house could’ve easily had the same thing done to it. She was no safer here than she was at home.

“Yeah,” said Minho, “you’re right. He’s doing great.”

_ “Yes,  _ he is,” she said, hoping that Janson would understand what her emphasis on the word  _ ‘yes’  _ meant.

It seemed that he did. He nodded, and disappeared through a wall to the left.

Teresa followed Minho into the living room and they both sat on the sofa.

“What did you bring?” asked Minho, gesturing to the Tesco bag.

Teresa removed the tubes of Pringles and bag of Skittles from the bag, laying them out on the coffee table.

Minho reached for the prawn cocktail flavour tube.

“Thomas asked for the Pringles,” said Teresa. “So don’t eat them all.”

“I won’t,” said Minho, popping the cap off.

“I mean it.”

“So do I!”

Teresa shook her head. There was a very good chance that that particular tube of Pringles would be gone by the time Thomas got home. At least she’d bought multiple cans. Even if Minho did eat all of the prawn cocktail, there’d still be enough left for Thomas.

“What’s up with you then?” asked Minho.

“Not much,” said Teresa. “What about you?”

“I had my meeting with student support this morning.”

“Oh? About the thing at the cafe?”

Minho nodded.

“How was it?”

“Pretty good! Better than expected, actually. I’m booked in for a few sessions with one of the counsellors, and they said that if I start to struggle then I should tell my advisor as soon as I can, and something can be worked out.”

“That’s good,” said Teresa.

“How did your meeting go?”

Teresa shook her head. “I haven’t had one.”

Minho paused with a Pringle halfway to his mouth. “What? We should’ve all had them by now, they told me this morning that they were  _ late  _ getting to me.”

Teresa shrugged. “I’d kinda have to respond to their email and set up a time before there can be a meeting about it.”

She’d been ignoring their emails on purpose. Unlike everyone else who’d been there that day, she’d known that she was safe. She’d known that there wasn’t any real danger to anyone except that robber. She’d planned it all herself. She was okay with what happened. If she talked to a professional about it, it wouldn’t help her in any way, she’d be taking up a slot that could be used by someone who genuinely needed help, and she ran the risk of outing herself as the mastermind behind the incident.

“Teresa!” Minho frowned, and his voice was firm. “You need to respond to their email. They’re there to help. Not taking the help is ridiculous.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m okay! I don’t need any help. I don’t want to take up any resources that could go to someone else.”

“You had a gun pointed at your head,” said Minho. “No way you’re just  _ okay  _ after that.”

Janson chose that moment to walk in, say, “The kitchen has ten cameras and microphones. I’m gonna go search the other rooms,” before leaving again.

If there were cameras here, that meant two things.

The first was that she was right about there being cameras in her own home.

The second was that her mother now knew that she’d had a gun pointed at her.

That was something that she hadn’t wanted her mother to  _ ever  _ know.

  
  


“A gun? Cafe? What are they talking about?”

“I don’t know,” said Newt. He opened a web browser on his phone and searched for incidents in that local area.

Ordinary crimes with no relation to Kira kept happening, even if their rate was somewhat reduced as of late, but he hadn’t been keeping up with them. If Teresa Agnes and some of her friends had got caught up in something, then that was horrible and he was glad that they were okay.

He would’ve hoped that Sonya would’ve told him if  _ she’d  _ been in danger at any point.

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

Jacob Bolt, age 46, had attacked three people at a bank and disappeared before the police could get there. The next day, he’d attempted to rob a dessert cafe, before emptying his gun into one of the walls and running into the road, where he’d been hit and killed instantly by an oncoming car. No one at the cafe had been hurt, but they’d all obviously been shaken by their experience.

Newt handed his phone over to Mary. “They might’ve been here when this happened.”

Mary read through the article. “Why wouldn’t she tell me about this?”

Newt took his phone back. “Maybe she didn’t want to worry you.”

“What else isn’t she telling me?”

“Probably a lot.” Newt shrugged. “People keep things from their parents. Especially at our age. They’re figuring out how to navigate the world by themselves for the first time. If she’d told you about what happened, how would you have reacted?”

“I-” she stopped. “I don’t know,” she continued after a few seconds’ pause. “I might’ve gone up there to personally check on them.”

“Which she probably wanted to avoid,” said Newt. “You have your younger son to look after, and you have your own job, and she probably also doesn’t want to be totally dependent on her mother.”

“But if that man threatened her-”

“I never said she was being logical.” Newt smiled reassuringly. “The two of you have a good relationship, right?”

Mary nodded.

“Then of course, the logical thing to do would be to call you. My guess is that she didn’t want to worry you. You can be reassured by the fact that the university is offering support, and she has at least one friend who’s willing to drag her there if necessary.”

Mary nodded, and sighed. “I wish I could talk to her about this.”

“I’m sorry. If she knew-”

“She can’t know about the cameras, I know.” Mary shook her head. “They’ve been talking for less than five minutes and I’ve already learnt that Thomas struggled with his attendance last year, and that Teresa has been threatened with a gun within the last month. What else are my children hiding from me?”

Newt suppressed the urge to make a joke about one of them possibly doing hard drugs. Given the circumstances, Mary would  _ not  _ take that well.

“You don’t have to nag me about this,” said Teresa on-screen. “I’ll sort it.”

“Email them now,” said Minho.

“What?”

“Get out your phone and set up the appointment now.”

Teresa laughed. “It’s fine, I’ll do it later.”

“Teresa I will drag you to student services if you don’t make that appointment right now.”

“Okay!” She got out her phone. “You  _ do  _ realise you’re not my Dad, right?”

Minho leaned over her shoulder to look at what she was doing.

“You’re so busy parenting the rest of us,” he said. “Sometimes you need someone to parent you.”

“I like him,” said Mary.

Newt nodded. “Sonya tells me that he’s a bit of a jokester, but his heart’s in the right place, and he cares a lot about his friends. She trusts him.”

“You probably know more about my kids’ friends than I do.”

“Probably,” he said. 

“We have a good relationship,” said Mary. “My kids tell me things. They tell me more than most kids tell their parents. But I don’t know anything about any of their friends.”

“They must’ve mentioned their friends at some point.”

“They have, but not in huge amounts of detail. It’s all,  _ ‘Minho said this on the groupchat today,’  _ and  _ ‘Frypan said this series was good’.  _ They haven’t ever gone into much detail about who their friends really are. I’ve just trusted their judgement. I should’ve asked more questions, I guess.” She put her head in her hands. “And now one of their friends could be Kira.”

Newt didn’t know how to reassure her, or if he even should.

In all likelihood, Kira was among one of these two households. Emily Watts had two teenage sons, but Newt’s didn’t think it was either of them. No, Kira was among the eight people living in the households of Mary Cooper’s children.

He didn’t think it was Sonya. It  _ was  _ possible that she was, but the reasoning behind it not being her was strong. If Sonya was Kira, either Kira would’ve been smarter, or Newt would already be dead.

He also didn’t think it was Harriet, Frypan, Minho, Gally, or Ben. He couldn’t discount them. Not entirely. But if Kira was one of the children of the person who was officially in charge of the investigation into their identity, it would be too perfect.

There was no such thing as a coincidence, and this was one hell of one.

On-screen, Minho had moved away from Teresa and had continued eating from the open tube of Pringles.

“It’s weird though,” he said.

“What is?” asked Teresa.

“That FBI agent.” Minho put the tube down on the coffee table and leant back. “The one you and Thomas met while it was all happening.”

Mary removed her head from her hands and dropped her hands back into her lap.

“Yeah,” said Teresa.

“Do you think he was one of the ones that Kira killed a few days ago?”

Teresa shrugged. “Maybe.”

The front door opened, and Thomas walked in.

“We’re in here!” Minho called out.

Thomas walked into the living room, his face breaking out into a huge smile.

Newt didn’t like to make a habit of lying to himself.

Thomas was gorgeous. He’d thought so when he’d first seen his photo when collating the information they had on the current suspects, and he still thought so now as he watched him on camera.

But he wasn’t about to develop a crush on someone he’d never spoken to.

He especially wasn’t going to develop a crush on his sister’s friend, who was also his colleague’s son, who was also a major suspect in an ongoing investigation.

It wouldn’t be remotely appropriate, and he had some modicum of self control.

“Are there more Pringles?” Thomas asked as he sat on the floor in front of Teresa and Minho.

Teresa pointed to the coffee table. “Only the prawn cocktail has been opened.”

“No, I mean, this isn’t enough.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious.”

Minho grabbed the prawn cocktail tube.

“The longer you spend complaining that your sister didn’t spend enough of her own money on you, the less you can have.”

Thomas pushed himself onto his knees, grabbed the tube off Minho, and began eating.

“Anyway,” said Minho, “as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted by Thomas’ entrance-”

“Hey!”

“FBI agents. Thoughts?”

Thomas swallowed a mouthful. “Do you mean as a general concept? Or did you have something more specific in mind?”

Minho leant down and took a handful of Pringles from the tube. “Obviously I meant the one you and Teresa met while the shit at the dessert place was going down. Do you think he had anything to do with the ones that Kira killed the other day?”

Thomas looked thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said. “He did ask us not to tell anyone else he was here, which would make sense if that’s why he was here.”

“He could’ve also had nothing to do with it,” said Teresa.

“There’s an easy way to check,” said Minho. “You guys saw his ID, right? Can you remember his name?”

Thomas and Teresa both shook their heads.

“His name didn’t register at all for me,” said Thomas. “I was a bit distracted by the FBI symbol. And, you know. The gun being waved around in the same room as us.”

“Same here,” said Teresa.

Minho got out his phone. “I’m pretty sure that the news put their pictures up too. Would you be able to recognise him?”

“Maybe,” said Thomas, leaning closer to look.

“Probably not,” said Teresa. “He’s a man that I met once. Their faces all kinda blend together in my mind.”

“You are so valid,” said Minho, not looking up from his phone. “Okay Thomas, is-” He paused. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

Minho turned his phone around so both Teresa and Thomas could see it. “I recognise him. He was one of them.”

“Oh,” said Teresa.

“Poor guy,” said Thomas.

Minho put his phone back in his pocket.

“Teresa,” said Thomas, “didn’t you say that you’d been seeing that guy around a lot?”

“What?” Teresa seemed panicked for a moment, but it passed quickly. “Yeah, I think so. I had been. He kinda disappeared after all that though. Why?”

“It’s just, if he was here because of the Kira investigation, then why was he here? The investigation is based in London.”

“Maybe they think that Kira’s a student,” said Teresa. “That would explain why he was on campus a lot.”

“You sure about that?” said Minho. “There are way more than twelve universities in the country. And if that  _ was  _ their approach, then they were never gonna achieve much by wandering around campus and the city and hoping they’d get lucky.”

“I think they might’ve been specifically following the family of the taskforce,” said Teresa.

The boys fell silent.

“You know,” said Thomas. “That makes sense.” All traces of his smile dropped away entirely. “So he was investigating us?”

Teresa nodded.

“And then he died after we saw his ID.”

“Hey now,” said Minho, “have either of you got anything you wanted to tell me?”

Both Thomas and Teresa shook their heads.

“Some other agent must’ve screwed up,” said Teresa. “Neither of  _ us  _ are Kira, so Kira must’ve found out about them somehow else.”

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.” Then he stood. “I want to try making a curry,” he said. “Either of you want to help me?”

Teresa jumped to her feet.

“I’m gonna wait for my boys to get home,” said Minho.

“Don’t eat all the snacks,” said Teresa as she followed Thomas out of the room.

Minho gave her a thumbs up.

Newt turned the volume of the stream down and turned towards Mary.

“It’s one of them, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It’s still possible that it isn’t,” said Newt. “But right now it’s looking likely that, yes, it’s one of them.”

Mary nodded, stood up, and left the room.

Newt let her go.

  
  


**DON’T DATE YOUR FLATMATES JFC YOU GUYS**

**Frypan:** Winston’s doing pres tonight then going to the gay club in town

**Frypan:** He told me to invite people

**Frypan:** Who’s in?

**Thomas:** i am so in

**Harriet:** I’m up for pres but not the club because I am sadly still in 9am hell

**Gally:** I’m in

**Ben:** Me too

**Ben:** Is Winston’s house big enough for everyone?

**Sonya:** I’ll come to pres and see how I feel about the rest

**Sonya:** I’ve had a kinda stressful couple of days

**Minho:** oh no! are you okay?

**Minho:** yes to pres btw

**Sonya:** Yeah! I’m all good dw

**Thomas:** what’s been stressing you out? maybe we can help?

**Sonya:** Lol I’d like to see you try

**Sonya:** My brother is annoying and that’s literally it

**Sonya:** I’m just a broken record don’t mind me

**Teresa:** i swear all you ever say about your brother is that he annoys you

**Gally:** Yeah you never talk about him at any other time

**Sonya:** He has requested that I let him stay mysterious, but when he pisses me off he cannot expect me to suffer in silence 🤷♀️

**Gally:** Fair

**Thomas:** @Teresa pres? club? coming?

**Minho:** yeah teresa! make it a full house!

**Minho:** obvvs no actual pressure but  👀

**Teresa:** lmao okay i’ll come

**Minho:** yesssss

**Harriet:** What time did Winston say we need to be there @Frypan?

**Frypan:** He said they were starting at 9pm, so that’s 10:30pm in gay time

**Harriet:** Okay 9pm got it

**Minho:** kjflgbkf

**Minho:** harriet you cannot keep doing this

**Harriet:** I can’t keep being the only one who can read a clock?

**Harriet:** Really?

**Sonya:** Hey! I can read a clock as well!

**Sonya:** I just also know when to Not read the clock

**Harriet:** If someone says the thing starts at a certain time then I’m gonna be there at that time

**Harriet:** I literally do not care about ‘gay time’ or whatever

**Harriet:** Some experiences are not universal

**Sonya:** Babe you’re valid but also let’s go to Winston’s together

**Harriet:** Okay 🥺

**Ben:** This is a COMPLETE change of topic but Gally just sent this to Minho and me and y’all need to see this cursed content

**Ben:** [ here you go ](https://imgur.com/a/NgcDCBE)

**Thomas:** GALLY

  
  


It had been a full 24 hours since the cameras had been installed.

In that time, Teresa had only been able to write two more names on a piece of paper taken from the notebook that she kept in her wallet. There wasn’t much more space on that piece, so she had to use it sparingly, and under no circumstances could she use it in class.

She’d written enough names into the notebook in advance that she was good for another week. If the cameras stayed up long enough for the deaths to stop, then that would be an issue, but hopefully the delay between the cameras going up and the deaths stopping would be enough to convince Newt and the rest of the taskforce that it was unrelated.

She doubted that they’d think it was unrelated.

She needed to stop doing that. She needed to stop underestimating Newt, and thinking that he wouldn’t make certain links. Making those assumptions had led him right to her door. That the boys were also under observation did little to reassure her. Newt had still narrowed down Kira’s identity to, at most, eight people. And he’d probably only been able to do  _ that  _ much because of  _ her  _ actions.

She needed to proceed as if she was Newt’s only suspect, and act accordingly.

She could ‘find’ a camera in the morning when she went to shower. Then they could call the landlord, and maybe even the police. Newt would  _ have _ to remove them if an outside force got involved.

Yes she’d killed a lot of people, but she and her housemates still had basic human rights and the right to privacy.

Plus the world was better off without the people she’d killed.

Anyway.

She was glad that Winston had decided to throw a party tonight. She didn’t think she could stand sitting in her room and attempting to distract herself. This way she’d get away from the cameras, spend some time with her friends, and forget about all the Kira business for a few hours.

Harriet had been on-brand as the punctual one and had dragged the rest of her housemates out of the house with enough time to spare that they’d get to Winston’s at the exact time that he’d said to be there. Frypan had compensated for this by messaging    
Winston to warn him that they were on their way, and then insisting that they detour to the Tesco so that he could buy some mixers, which had the benefit of both delaying them and meaning that there would be more mixers at this party.

That was good news for Teresa, because she wasn’t planning on drinking.

She hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since she found the notebook. She’d wanted to, but she’d known it was a bad idea. Whenever Teresa drank she inevitably ended up telling anyone who she could force to listen to her everything that was on her mind. The last thing that she needed was to drunkenly tell someone that she was Kira, or worse, to drunkenly tell someone about the notebook.

She bought herself a bottle of cola, figuring that she should at least try not to drink all of the mixers herself. The people who  _ were  _ going to be drinking would need them, because once the decision to drink had been made, nothing would stop them. Drinking large amounts of spirits straight was a recipe for disaster. Mixers were required.

She left the shop when she was done and waited outside for her friends to emerge.

Sonya came out less than a minute after Teresa did, having made a similar purchase.

For as long as Teresa had known Sonya, Sonya had been sober. She didn’t drink and she never had. She had, on occasion, tasted a friend’s cocktail, but one sip was barely anything and one sip was all she’d ever drink before going back to her own, non-alcoholic drink.

Teresa didn’t know if there was a reason why Sonya didn’t drink, but there didn’t need to be one. As far as Teresa was concerned, it was a  _ good  _ thing that Sonya didn’t drink. It meant that she could always be relied upon to have her wits about her on a night out, and it meant that there was no danger of Sonya slipping into alcoholism.

There’d been a point last year when Teresa had been seriously concerned about Ben.

Teresa and Sonya smiled at each other in greeting and waited in silence for a few more minutes before Harriet and Frypan walked out of the shop together.

Frypan frowned when he saw them.

“Are you two okay?”

Teresa blinked.

“Yes?” She and Sonya looked at each other in confusion. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Frypan shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “You both just kinda looked upset.”

“Did we?” asked Sonya. She shook her head and smiled. “Sorry, I was just thinking about things.”

“Thinking is very dangerous,” said Harriet, stepping forwards and linking her arm with Sonya’s.

Sonya nodded solemnly. “It is indeed.”

“Seriously though,” said Harriet, looking between Sonya and Teresa. “If something’s bothering you guys, you know you can tell us, right?”

“Exactly,” said Frypan. “We’re your friends, we’re here to help.”

Teresa nodded along, and the group set off.

She was sure that whatever was bothering Sonya, she could talk to her friends about it. She could talk to  _ Teresa  _ about it. Like Frypan had said, Teresa would be more than happy to listen to and help out her friend!

But Teresa couldn’t tell anyone about what was on her mind.

If she did, she’d ruin everything.

It didn’t take too long after Teresa and her housemates arrived at Winston’s for the party to start in earnest, and soon it was in full swing. Teresa knew most of the people there at least by name, but there were a few people that she didn’t know at all.

Janson was having a grand time, having snuck three shots of vodka, and was dancing his heart out in the middle of the small crowd of people doing the same in the living room. Teresa was glad that he was enjoying himself. It meant he wasn’t bothering her.

Teresa was standing in the corner in the kitchen, watching the drinking game that was happening in there. Thomas, Gally, Ben, Winston, Zart, and Miyoko were all taking it in turns to pick up a card from the middle and take an action depending on what card they drew, and other people were occasionally joining in for a round as they came in and out of the kitchen to replenish their drinks or grab some snacks.

Sonya appeared at Teresa’s side and handed her a cup of orange liquid.

“What’s this?”

Sonya grinned. “It’s the last of Clint’s Fanta. He’s passed out in his room already, so Jeff said we might as well finish it off.”

Teresa took the cup. “It’s only midnight.”

“I know.” Sonya drank some of her own drink. “Apparently Clint’s been drinking since three.”

Teresa winced.

“Yeah,” said Sonya. “I don’t know how he hasn’t been sick yet. I guess him passing out is a small mercy, at least he can’t fuck up his liver any more tonight.”

Teresa was about to say something to the effect of  _ ‘at least there’s that’  _ when she was interrupted by a cacophony of chairs scraping against the floor and everyone who was participating in the drinking game climbing onto their chairs so that they could touch the ceiling. Ben was the last one up, and as a consequence had to drink.

“Someone pulled a seven,” said Sonya.

Teresa nodded. “I don’t miss that.”

“Don’t miss what?” asked Sonya. “The game?”

“Not the whole game,” said Teresa. “It’s mostly fun. But climbing on chairs when you’re drunk and everything is spinning is  _ not  _ fun, and I can’t believe I kept doing it.”

“It can be freaky when you’re sober too if you don’t like heights.”

“Heights are a reasonable fear to have.”

“This is true.” 

“I’m also not actually scared of heights.”

“Just falling, right?” asked Sonya, her eyebrow raised.

Teresa smiled. “Being high up isn’t likely to kill me. If I fall from a great height, then it probably will.”

“Ah,” said Sonya. “So your true fear is death.”

Teresa laughed. “You’re feeling philosophical today.”

Sonya laughed along with her. “I guess I am. I think my course is getting to me.”

“Can’t you go back to infodumping about paganism and witchcraft?”

“I need to have my sources to hand for that,” said Sonya. “And right now I don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Teresa said. “But I want your next lecture to be ready by the end of tomorrow.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Teresa looked around the room. “Where’s Harriet?”

“Angling to get rid of me, are you?”

Teresa put an arm around her. “Of course not,” she said. “I was just wondering.”

Sonya hugged her back, and let go. “I know,” she said. “Harri was dancing with Minho a few minutes ago, she’s probably still there.”

Teresa nodded. “Just so long as she doesn’t get left alone.”

“We don’t need to worry about that,” said Sonya, shaking her head. “If Minho disappears on her, she'll come looking for me, and this would be the first room she’d check.”

The group playing the drinking game all groaned, and somebody yelled out ‘WATERFALL’.

“Hey, you’re standing in front of the vodka,” someone said.

Teresa turned around to see who was asking her to move, formulating a response in her head that was both polite and still firmly reminded them that it was more than possible to be polite even when drunk, and stopped short.

It was Brenda.

“Uh, sorry,” she said, and she and Sonya stepped out of the way.

Brenda grabbed the half empty bottle of vodka and poured a decent amount of it into her cup. She took a sip without bothering to mix it with anything and grinned. “It’s alright,” she said. “We’re on the same course, right?”

“Yeah,” said Teresa. “We are.”

“Your name’s Teresa?”

Teresa gulped, and nodded.

Brenda laughed. “What are you looking so terrified for? If you’re forgotten my name I’m not gonna bite your head off for it.”

“No, you’re Brenda, I know that.”

“Excellent!”

Sonya tapped Teresa’s shoulder to get her attention.

The look on her face told Teresa that she was both supportive and finding this hilarious.

“I’m gonna go to the loo,” she said. “Don’t wait for me.”

Teresa tried to subtly communicate with just her eyes that she needed Sonya to not abandon her right now, but if her message was understood then it was also resoundly ignored. Sonya left without another word.

Brenda took another sip of her vodka.

“So,” she said. “You know Zart? Or did you just follow the party aura until you found yourself here?”

Begging herself to Just Be Normal For Once, Teresa said, “Winston’s friends with one of my friends.”

Brenda nodded. “That’s cool,” she said. “Zart and I know each other through YouTube soc.”

“There’s a YouTube society?”

Brenda shrugged. “Not officially,” she said. “We probably have enough people by now that we could make it official though.” She took another sip. “Would you support it if we submitted the proposal?”

“Send me the petition link and I’ll sign my name.”

Brenda grinned. “I like you.”

At that moment, Thomas turned around and spotted Brenda and Teresa in the corner. “Hey,” he called out, “do you two wanna join in a round?”

Brenda glanced at Teresa, her grin morphing into a smirk that Teresa was sure was just for her. “I could pick a card,” she said. “I won’t stick around for too long though, I kinda had other plans about how I was gonna spend my night.”

The group at the table looked over at Teresa.

“Uh, same.” She pointed at her (nearly empty) cup. “I’m not drinking anyway, so there isn’t much point.”

Brenda walked over to the table, pondered over the selection for a few seconds, and then picked a card.

The whole group burst out laughing when they saw what it was.

Teresa walked over to the group so that she could see what was so funny.

Brenda had managed to pick the joker.

“You are now faced with a choice,” said Gally, in an over the top impersonation of a Bond villain. “You can either select a dare at random, which you will then have to carry out, or you can drink the entirety of this.” He gestured to a plastic cup in the centre of the table. The cup was half full, and the liquid was a shade of brown that was too light to be cola and too dark to be beer.

“What’s in the cup?” asked Brenda.

Gally was really good at looking evil. Teresa was impressed.

“It’s a mixture of all of our drinks, plus a few extra things that shall remain nameless. Let’s just say that drinking this won’t be a pleasant experience.”

Brenda nodded. “Dare.”

Thomas shook his head. “You sure? Some of the dares are awful.”

“I’m sure.”

A small box full of folded pieces of paper was retrieved from a cupboard by Miyoko and held out towards Brenda. Brenda reached into the box and picked one out. She unfolded the paper, cleared her throat, and read off: “Hold hands with a person of your choice for the next round.”

A few of the people at the table groaned.

“Really?” said Gally, slumping in his seat. “That’s such a boring one!”

Brenda held her arm out straight in front of her and dropped the slip of paper onto the table.

She then took Teresa’s hand.

“And would you look at that,” said Brenda. “I said I’d pick one card, and I’ve done it. Bye all.”

She then turned and walked out of the kitchen, taking Teresa with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please drop a comment!!! knowing that there are people reading and enjoying this is the one thing that's guaranteed to make me actually focus on this, and will hopefully lead to there not being any more three month gaps between chapters

**Author's Note:**

> i love comments and kudos more than thomas and newt love each other :D
> 
> come say [hi !!](https://astralpenguin.tumblr.com/)


End file.
